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III  SELF 
\FTER  DEATH 

ARTHUR  CHAMBERS 


'Jiiiilil!;!!-!! 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNI\^RSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


l^trs.  E.  F.  Ducomimin 


OUR   SELF   AFTER   DEATH 


Our  Self  after  Death 

(Can  we,  in  the  light  of  Christ  and  His 

Teaching,  know  MORE  on  this  subject  than  is 

commonly  expressed  in  Christian  Belief  ?) 


BY  THE 
REVEREND  ARTHUR  CHAMBERS 

Associate  of  King's  College,  London; 

Vicar  of  Brockenhurst,  Hampshire; 

(Author  of  "Our  Life  after  Death,"  "Man  and  the  Spiritual  World, 

"Thoughts  of  the  Spiritual,"  and  "Problems  of  the  Spiritual.") 


MARLOWE  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILL. 


di 


Copyright 

MARLOWE  PRESS 

Chicago,  111. 


1006059 


THIS   LITTLE   WORK 
IS  SYMPATHETICALLY   DEDICATED 
TO  THOSE  COUNTLESS  THOUSANDS  OF  MOURN- 
ING  ONES,   IN   THIS   AND   OTHER   LANDS, 
WHO,  BY  THIS  TERRIBLE  EUROPEAN 
WAR,     ARE      FACING      THE 
THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH 
AND  THE  HERE- 
AFTER. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction         .  .  .  .  .1 

The  Great  Enquiry  ....  3 

Wrong  and  Inadequate  Answers  given  to  the 

Great  Enquiry  .  .  .8 

(a)  That  of  the  Materialist    .            .  8 

(6)  That  of  the  Christian-Materialist    .  12 

(c)  The  Theory  of  the  Diminished  Self  23 

(d)  The  Answer  of  the  Agnostic  Christian  29 

(e)  The  Obscuration  of  the  True  Answer 

BY  THE  Customs  and  Religious  Prac- 
tices OF  Christendom  .  .       33 

The  Answer  from  Christ  to  the  Great  En- 
quiry ....  44 

I.  That  our  Self  is  not  dependent  for 
existence  upon  the  Physical  Organ- 
isation, AND  survives  SEPARATION 
FROM    IT  .  .  .  .52 

11.  That,  After  Death,  our  Self  is  not  a 

Bodiless  Entity     ...  69 

III.  That,  after  Death,  the  Mental  Pow- 
ers AND  Qualities  of  our  Spiritually- 
encased     Self    are    retained     .  119 


CONTENTS 

(a)  The  Retention  of  the  Mind  itself    .     122 
(6)  The  Retention  of  Memory  .  125 

(c)  The  Retention  of  Love  for,  Sympathy 

WITH,  AND  Interest  in,  those  left  in 
Earth-life  .  .  .     130 

(d)  The  Retention  of  Sequential  Thought    135 

IV.  That,  in  After-Life,  the  Self,  Bodily, 
Mentally,  and  Spiritually,  ad- 
vances .  .  .  148 

Light  through  the  cloud        .  .  .     166 


Our  Self  after  Death 

INTRODUCTION. 


My  answer  to  the  interrogatory  expressed 
in  the  subsidiary  title  of  this  little  work  is,  of 
course,  "Yes."  I  believe — whether  rightly 
or  wrongly — that  the  Church  of  Christ  (and 
by  "the  Church"  I  mean  the  Anglican, 
Roman  and  Eastern  Churches  and  other 
Christian  communities)  has  not  hitherto 
realised,  although  it  is  now  beginning  to 
realise,  all  that  lies  disclosed  in  the  New 
Testament  concerning  our  Self  after  Death. 
I  humbly  venture  to  submit  that  it  is  pos- 
sible for  us  who  live  in  an  age  of  enlarged 
Christian  Thought,  of  Scientific  Psychical 
Research,  and  of  ever-extending  knowledge 
of  the  mysteries  of  Human-being,  to  see  in 
the  Gospel-Records  far  more  on  the  subject 
of  After-Life  than  Christendom,  as  a  whole, 
has  in  the  past  perceived. 

My  task,  in  these  pages,  will  be  to  try  and 
justify  this  assertion.     It  may  seem  a  bold 

1 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

thing  for  me  to  attempt  to  do;  but  I  think 
that  this  time  of  widespread  death  and  sor- 
row calls  for  the  effort;  and  I  set  myself  to 
the  work  only  after  twenty  or  more  years  of 
earnest  thought  and  study  of  this  great 
subject. 

I  ask  the  reader  to  carefully  think  out 
what  is  herein  expressed;  and  then  to  ask 
himself — "Are  these  things  so,  in  the  light  of 
Christ  and  Scripture?" 

If  he  can  answer  affirmatively,  then  I  think 
he  will  find,  as  I  have  found,  that  there  is 
more  in  Christian  Truth  than  Traditional 
Belief  has  supposed :  a  something  more  potent 
than  that  which  is  commonly  expressed  in 
Burial  hymns  and  Funeral  sermons,  to  lift 
from  off  the  landscape  of  human  experience 
the  darkening  shadows  of  Bereavement  and 
Dying. 


THE  GREAT  ENQUIRY. 


"What  of  our  Self  after  Death?"  This  is 
the  question  (embodying  in  it  a  host  of  other 
questions)  which  has  been  asked,  anxiously, 
earnestly,  and  persistently,  by  men  and 
women  in  all  ages,  and  under  all  conditions 
of  human  existence.  No  question  has  ever 
been  so  universally  and  so  pertinaciously 
asked  as  this  one.  Primitive  Man,  without 
any  civilisation,  books  and  Religion,  voiced  it, 
when  he  looked  on  physical  death,  and  in- 
tuitively felt  that  behind  it  lay  some  fact  of 
continued  existence.  The  old-world  Philoso- 
phers and  Thinkers  were  asking  the  question; 
when  without  any  Religious  Eschatological 
formularies,  or  Christ  declared  and  Christ- 
demonstrated  facts  to  help  and  guide  them, 
they  told  the  ones  of  their  age  that  the  grave 
or  funeral  pyre  was  not  the  goal  of  them- 
selves and  others.  And  all  adown  the  ages, 
that  question  has  been  constantly  asked.  Pa- 
triarchs, Seers,  Prophets,  Jews  who  shaped 

3 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

their  lives  according  to  the  Law  of  Moses 
(which  says  nothing  about  After  Life  and  Im- 
mortality), and  the  big  crowd  of  good  and 
thinking  ones  who  lived  before  Christ — the 
great  Revealer — came;  all  these  kept  on 
earnestly  and  persistently  asking  this  ques- 
tion. And  since  the  Christ  came — since  the 
world  has  known  what  He  said,  and  what  He, 
in  His  own  person,  disclosed  as  to  the  hitherto 
little  known  facts  of  human-being — men  and 
women  have  gone  on  asking  that  old,  old 
question,  "What  of  our  Self  after  Death?" 

Those  who  are  members  of  the  Christian 
Churches  and  Communities,  who  have  men- 
tally ''drilled-themselves"  to  unquestioning- 
ly  accept  what  their  particular  Religious 
Body  has  told  them  must  be  believed  on  this 
subject — even  they  are  not  quite  satisfied 
with  what  they  have  been  told.  They  hardly 
like  to  admit  it  to  themselves,  and  they  cer- 
tainly would  not  mention  it  to  others,  whose 
"Orthodox"  opinions  they  might  shock — that 
they  are  not  very  much  comforted,  not  very 
much  inspired,  and  not  very  much  impressed 
by  what  is  commonly  pronounced  as  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  concerning  those  who  die.  It 
lacks  something.  Within  the  sanctuary  of 
their  innermost  thoughts,  when  the  sense  of 

4 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

bereavement  most  heavily  presses  upon  their 
spirit,  and  when  the  words  of  Burial  Service 
and  hynms  fall  short  of  what  they  crave  for 
in  the  way  of  comfort — are  not  such  asking 
mentally,  poignantly,  or  even  with  a  shadow 
of  despair,  in  spite  of  all  assurances  as  to 
distant  resuscitation  and  "beatific  visions" 
—"Oh!  ivhat  of  our  Self  after  Death r' 

And  you,  mj^  Reader,  have  asked  this  ques- 
tion at  some  time  or  another.  Did  not  your 
spirit  whisper  it  when  you  stole  into  the  quiet 
room  wherein  lay  the  dead  body  of  one  you 
loved,  and  still  love  ?  How  half -fearfully  you 
lifted  the  white  covering  from  that  still,  calm 
face;  and  as  the  tears  bedimmed  your  eyes, 
and  a  great  sob  broke  from  your  sorrow- 
charged  soul,  you  mentally  said,  "What  of 
the  Self  that  has  gone  ? ' '  Ah !  yes ;  and  there 
never  has  been,  as  noiv,  such  a  time  when 
so  many  have  asked  this  same  question. 
Millions  of  our  fellows  in  this  great  and 
terrible  war  have  been  slaughtered  on  the 
battle-fields,  or  succumbed  to  wounds,  or 
perished  by  disease.  They  have  gone  hence; 
the  husbands,  parents,  sons,  brothers,  sweet- 
hearts, friends  of  some  or  others. 

From  scores  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  love  them  and  mourn  for  them  one  great 

5 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

irrepressible  thought,  voiced  or  unvoiced,  is 
arising,  "What  of  those  'dead'  ones!  What 
of  their  Self?" 

But  no  one  can  ask  this  question  without 
there  arising  a  number  of  other  questions 
closely  connected  with  it.  What  is  our  Self? 
Is  it  a  personal  entity? 

Has  it,  when  detached  from  the  earthly 
body,  a  consciousness  of  Individuality?  Is 
it  in  form;  as  possessing  some  kind  of  bodily 
encasement?  Is  there  gTowi:h  and  perfecting 
of  the  bodily  presence  in  Spirit-Life?  Are  the 
inherent  powers  of  our  Self  retained  in  that 
Life;  so  that  memory,  the  recalling  of  past 
associations,  sympathy,  concernfulness,  de- 
sire to  help,  and  love  for  others  are  still  exist- 
ent ?  Is  the  discarnate  Self  excluded  from  the 
knowledge  of  things  mundane?  Is  there  any 
real  communion  between  those  on  earth  and 
those  in  Other  Life? 

In  that  Life,  is  the  Purpose  of  God 
advancement  and  development,  and  ultimate 
salvation  for  the  Selves  of  men?  In  that 
Life  is  prayer  an  exercise  of  the  Self,  and  can 
our  prayers  benefit  those  Beyond?  In  that 
Life,  are  developed  Selves  used  as  instru- 
ments for  the  uplifting  of  non-developed  and 
less   developed   others?     Are  those   on   the 

6 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Other  Side  ever  permitted  to  come  and  mani- 
fest themselves  to  us  in  This  Side  ? 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  questionings 
which  group  themselves  around  what  I  have 
called  ' '  The  Great  Enquiry. ' '  There  are  very 
few,  if  any,  bereaved  ones  who  have  not  asked 
them,  either  mentally  or  orally.  Many  hun- 
dreds of  sorrowing  souls,  by  interview  or 
letter,  have  put  them  to  me.  Are  there — in 
the  Religion  of  Christ,  understood  in  its  ful- 
ness— answers  to  be  found,  which  are  clear, 
definite,  doubt-dispelling  and  convincing?  I 
think  so;  or  I  should  never  have  attempted 
to  write  these  pages.  How  inexplicable  it 
would  be,  if  from  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  there 
came  to  us  no  positive,  cheery  and  reassuring 
Voice,  to  answer  the  thoughts  of  anguished 
ones  as  they  stand  at  the  death-bed  and  the 
open  grave,  or  as  they  themselves  cross  over 
the  Frontier  of  the  Spiritual ! 


WRONG  AND  INADEQUATE  ANSWERS 
GIVEN  TO  THE  GREAT  ENQUIRY. 

There  is  the  answer  which  is  given  by  the 
Materialist.  To  the  question,  "What  of  our 
Self  after  Death?"  he  replies,  "There  is  no 
Self  after  Death;  the  individual  ceases  to 
exist  when  life  is  removed  from  the  physical 
body."  You  know  the  theory  to  which  the 
materialist  stands  pledged.  He  believes  that 
the  Self  is  a  physical  organization,  plus  a 
something  called  Mind;  which  latter  he  as- 
serts is  the  resultant  of  certain  unknown  com- 
binations and  configurations  of  material 
atoms  and  molecules.  As  long  as  these  com- 
binations and  configurations  are  maintained, 
the  mind  continues ;  but  when  the  physical  ap- 
paratus is  brought  to  a  standstill  and  is  dis- 
rupted by  death,  the  mind  disappears ;  as  the 
flame  of  a  lamp  or  candle  does,  when  the  oil 
or  tallow  is  expended ;  and  the  Self  comes  to 
an  end. 

I  shall  not  at  this  stage  of  the  subject  show 
how  illogical  and  unscientific  such  a  concep- 

8 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

tion  is.  But  one  can  think  of  nothing  more 
melancholy,  depressing  and  disappointing  to 
any  thoughtful  person  than  to  feel  that  this 
view  must  be  accepted.  A  few  years  ago 
I  had  an  experience  bearing  upon  this  point, 
which  impressed  me  very  much.  I  recount  it 
in  order  to  illustrate,  from  fact,  how  wholly 
unsatisfying  to  himself,  as  well  as  others, 
is  the  answer  of  the  Materialist  to  the 
question  we  are  considering.  A  distinguished 
scientist,  a  very  old  man,  asked  me  to  have 
a  chat  with  him  at  an  hotel  at  which  he  was 
staying.  I  withhold  his  name  because  he  has 
since  "passed  over";  and  I  think  it  would 
pain  him  on  the  Other  Side  were  I  to  link  his 
name  with  views  he  has  now  discarded.  Some- 
body had  told  him  of  a  book  I  had  written. 
"You  believe  in  an  After-Life — don't  you?" 
he  said.  ' '  Yes, ' '  was  my  reply, ' '  don 't  you  ? ' ' 
"No,"  rejoined  the  dear  old  man,  "I  believe 
that  at  death  we  come  to  our  ending.''  We 
had  a  long  and  earnest  conversation.  He 
said  that  he  believed  in  the  existence  of  God. 
I  asked  him  if  he  could  reconcile  the  idea 
of  extinction  at  death  with  the  thought  of 
there  being  a  Divine  "fitness  of  things."  Did 
he  think  that  God  dealt  less  consistently  and 
fairly  with  man,  the  highest  of  His  terrestrial 

9 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

creatures,  than  with  insects,  birds  and  ani- 
mals— His  lower  ones?  I  submitted  that,  as 
far  as  we  know,  there  exists  in  creatures, 
lower  than  ourselves,  no  instinct  or  perma- 
nent desire  for  which  a  corresponding  satis- 
fying has  not  been  provided.  Thus,  the  bee 
desires  the  flowers  and  the  honey,  the  bird  the 
free  air,  and  the  ox  the  green  pastures ;  and 
for  each,  the  thing  desired  has  been  provided 
in  the  order  of  Nature.  The  implanted  in- 
stinct has  not  been  left  without  the  possibility 
of  satisfying  it.  Then  I  argued  that  this  ''fit- 
ness of  things"  did  not  exist  in  regard  to  the 
higher  creature — man,  if  the  teaching  of 
the  Materialist  be  right.  The  literatures  and 
religions  of  the  human  race,  in  all  ages  and 
under  all  conditions,  have  shown  that  there 
is  infixed  in  mankind  the  thought,  the  desire, 
the  belief,  the  hope,  the  conviction  concerning 
After-Life  and  Immortality.  Is  it  reasonable 
to  thinlc  that  God,  who  never  mocks  His 
lower  creatures  by  not  supplying  the  cor- 
respondences to  implanted  instincts,  does  so 
mock  us;  by  allowing  us  to  hold  persistently 
the  thought  of  Life  beyond  the  grave,  when 
no  such  life  exists?  Then  I  pressed  the  argu- 
ment in  another  and  more  personal  way.  I 
asked  my  old  friend,  was  he,  as  one  who 

10 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

thought  that  physical  dying  would  end  us, 
satisfied  that  this  should  be  so?  Had  he  ac- 
quired, in  the  course  of  his  long  life,  all 
the  knowledge  of  his  own  being  and  of 
the  universe  he  was  desirous  of  acquiring? 
*'No,"  he  answered.  Did  he  think  that  if 
life  and  mental  power  could  be  sufficiently 
prolonged  to  him,  there  was  the  capacity  in 
him  for  attaining  vaster  knowledge  than  he 
possessed,  and  of  becoming  greater  than  he 
was?  "Undoubtedly,"  he  replied.  And  did 
he  not  think  it  a  disappointing,  saddening  and 
unreasonable  order  of  things  that  he,  en- 
dowed with  such  potentialities,  desirous  and 
capable  of  so  much,  should  have  been  allowed 
to  mount  so  many  rungs  of  the  ladder  of 
advancement,  and  then,  when  the  cry  of 
"Excelsior"  is  ringing  in  his  mental  being, 
for  the  ladder,  as  it  were,  to  be  kicked  away 
from  under  him,  and  the  aspiring  Self  to  be 
swept  into  annihilation?  The  old  man  was 
silent  for  a  few  moments  and  then  turning  to 
me  he  said,  "I  wish  to  God  I  could  believe 
what  you  believe ! " 

"You  ivill,  dear  friend,"  was  my  rejoinder, 
"when  you  cross  the  Border-line." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  answer  of  the 
Materialist  is  wrong;  because  it  alleges  in 

11 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

respect  to  Divine  working  an  inconsistency — 
an  instinct  pointing  to  nothing;  and  in  re- 
spect to  man  nought  but  disappointment  and 

a  void. 

#        *         *         * 

We  pass  to  another  answer  given  to  the 
question,  "What  of  our  Self  after  Death?" 
It  is  that  of  a  not  inconsiderable  body  of 
Christians ;  less,  perhaps,  in  number  now,  in 
this  age  of  psychic  investigation  and  pheno- 
mena, than  they  were  forty  or  fifty  years  ago. 
They  may  be  called  "Christian  Material- 
ists"; and  indeed  they  have  so  described 
themselves.  Their  conception  of  the  Self  is 
that  of  the  non-Christian  Materialist,  with  an 
important  difference.  The  non-Christian  Ma- 
terialist believes  that  the  Self  is  destroyed 
for  ever  by  the  death  of  the  physical  body: 
these  Christian  Materialists  hold  the  view 
that  the  obliteration  of  the  Self  at  death  is  not 
final,  but  only  temporary.  They  teach,  with 
the  other  Materialists,  that  as  the  mind  and 
consciousness  (without  which  there  could  be 
no  Self)  arise  from,  and  depend  for  exist- 
ence upon  the  material  organization,  when 
that  organization  dies,  the  Self  also  dies  and 
the  man  ceases  to  be. 

But  they  believe,  also,  that  there  is  to  come 
12 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

a  day  when  the  dead,  disintegrated  and  dis- 
persed physical  body,  in  all  its  constituent 
parts  and  particles,  will  be  re-collected,  re- 
organized and  re-vivified,  and  that  then,  after 
an  interval  of  non-entity,  the  Self  will  again 
come  into  existence,  and  in  a  resurrected 
body  go  straight  away  to  an  everlasting 
Heaven,  or  a  never-ending  Hell. 

It  is  a  disappointing  and  soul-chilling  doc- 
trine; one  with  which  I  could  not  go  to  any 
death-bed,  or  use  for  trying  to  dry  a  mourn- 
er's tears.  It  is  built  up  not  on  what  Christ 
demonstrated  and  the  Gospel  records  teach, 
but  on  statements  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment— the  statements  of  men  who  lived  only 
in  the  ''twilight"  of  knowledge  and  revela- 
tion ;  who  said  many  things  which  were  true, 
but  also  many  things  which  were  not  true 
in  the  light  of  the  revealments  of  Christ's 
religion.  The  position  of  those  who  hold  the 
''Christian-Materialist"  views  is  strangely 
illogical.  They  find  in  the  Old  Testament  a 
number  of  passages  which,  undoubtedly,  ap- 
pear to  support  their  theory :  such  passages, 
for  example,  as  "His  breath  goeth  forth,  he 
retui-neth  to  his  earth ;  and  in  that  very  day 
his  thoughts  perish."  (Ps.  cxlvi.  4);  "For 
in  death  there  is  no  remembrance  of  Thee; 

13 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

in  the  grave  who  shall  give  Thee  thanks!" 
(Ps.  vi.  5) ;  "There  is  no  work,  nor  device, 
nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom,  in  the  grave 
whither  thou  goest."  (Eccles.  ix.  10);  "For 
the  grave  cannot  praise  Thee;  death  cannot 
celebrate  Thee;  they  that  go  down  into  the 
pit  cannot  hope  for  Thy  truth."  (Isaiah 
xxxviii.  18). 

Now,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  these 
statements,  and  others  like  them  in  the  Old 
Testament,  do  perplex  and  sadden  many 
mourning  ones  as  they  stand  in  the  presence 
of  death.  The  only  thought  which  can  then 
comfort  them  is  that  their  loved  one  gone 
has  not  ceased  to  exist.  No  belief  that  the 
Self  extinguished  by  physical  dying  Avill  be 
recalled  into  existence  on  a  far-off  Eesur- 
rection-Day,  will  assuage  their  grief.  That 
doctrine,  at  such  a  time,  will  help  them  no 
more  than  it  helped  Martha,  when,  with  her 
heart  crying  out  for  a  living  instead  of  a 
dead  brother,  she  said  to  Jesus,  "I  know  that 
he  shall  rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the 
last  day."  What  she  needed,  and  what  every 
bereaved  one  needs,  was  to  be  able  to  realize 
the  truth  about  the  still  living  Self  (in  spite 
of  the  dead  body),  as  contained  in  the  Mas- 
ter's reply  to  her,  "Whosoever  liveth  and 

14 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

believeth  in  Me  shall  never  die."  You  re- 
member Martha's  inability  to  answer  the 
question  of  Jesus,  "Believest  thou  thisf" 
Old  Testament  statements  stood  in  the  way 
of  her  perception  of  fuller  enlightenment. 
Yes,  and  the  same  thing  is  trae  of  many 
Christians  now.  The  Old  Testament  texts  as 
quoted  above  shut  out  for  them  the  light 
which  streams  from  Christ.  They  ask,  ''Do 
not  such  passages  clearly  teach  that  the  Self 
dies  with  the  body?  Are  they  not  the  in- 
spired words  of  the  Bible?  Is  not  the  'Chris- 
tian-Materialist' right  in  his  conclusions?" 
These  are  questionings  which  are  presented 
to  thousands  of  earnest  ones  who  betake 
themselves  to  the  Scriptures  for  light  on  the 
subject  of  After  Death.  They  must  be  an- 
sw^ered  before  a  conviction  of  truth  can  be 
attained. 

Take,  then,  these  Old  Testament  texts 
about  which  we  are  thinking.  They  certainly 
teach  something  very  different  from  what 
Christ  taught,  and  afterwards  demonstrated 
in  His  owm  Person.  There  is  not  in  them  a 
faintest  w^hisper  as  to  the  survival  of  the 
Self  at  bodily  death.  One  could  think  of  noth- 
ing more  gloom-inspiring  than  to  repeat 
them  to  a  dying  person,  or  beside  an  open 

15 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

grave.  Again,  the  personal  pronouns  used  in 
the  passages  ("his,"  "who,"  "thou,"  and 
"they")  surely  refer  to  individuals.  How 
can  beings,  who  at  death  are  declared  to  be 
bereft  of  thought  and  the  power  to  remem- 
ber, who  are  without  work,  device,  knowl- 
edge, wisdom,  hope,  ability  to  praise  and 
celebrate  God — how  can  they  remain  as 
Selves?  What  answer  can  we  give  to  these 
difficulties  w^hich  confront  the  enquirer? 
Well!  the  answer  is  not  hard  to  find,  if  one 
will  exercise  a  little  thought.  The  difficulty 
as  to  the  inability  of  reconciling  statements 
made  in  the  Old  Testament  with  those  which 
stand  in  the  new  Testament,  will  disappear, 
if  Bible-readers  will  get  rid  of  the  idea  that 
everything  written  within  the  two  covers  of 
that  Book  is  inspired,  and  equally  inspired. 
It  is  an  idea  which  has  barred  the  way  to 
fuller  knowledge  for  many  an  earnest  seeker 
after  Truth.  Millions  of  Christians  have 
formed  no  more  than  a  dim  and  inadequate 
conception  of  After  Life,  because  the  state- 
ments in  the  Bible  are  conflicting;  and  they 
have  been  schooled  to  suppose  that  what  a 
Psalmist,  or  a  Solomon  may  have  written  is 
of  equal  value  and  authority  with  what 
Christ  said  and  demonstrated.   But  it  is  not 

16 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

true  that  all  statements  contained  in  the 
Bible  are  inspired,  and  equally  inspired. 
Solomon  was  not  inspired,  when,  in  his  pes- 
simistic Treatise,  he  wrote,  ''Vanity  of  vani- 
ties; all  is  vanity."  (Eccles.  i.  2.)  Those 
words,  if  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  would 
appear  to  us  jarring,  and  discordant  with  his 
teaching  and  practice.  The  Psalmist  was  not 
inspired  when,  under  the  impulse  of  feelings 
which  Jesus  condemned,  he  wrote  his  impre- 
catory psalms.  The  writers  of  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  lived  in  ages  of  lesser  en- 
lightenment than  did  the  men  who  wrote  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament.  The  former 
had  not  the  knowledge  and  ideas  which  the 
latter  possessed.  In  the  statements  of  the 
Bible  concerning  our  Self  at  death,  we  see 
the  great  Law  of  mental  Evolution  and  De- 
velopment at  work.  A  consistent  Christian, 
in  forming  his  belief  on  this  subject,  will  con- 
sider, first,  what  he  may  know  from  Christ 
Himself,  and  His  teaching  as  recorded  in  the 
Gospels.  Next,  he  will  study  what  Apostolic 
Writers,  who  were  associated  with  Jesus, 
have  to  say  about  it;  always  remembering 
that  their  representations  of  truth  are  not  as 
authoritative  as  the  representations  of  Him 
"Who  abolished  death,  and  brought  life  and 

17 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

incorruption  to  light  through  the  Gospel."  (ii 
Tim.  i.  10.)  And,  lastly,  the  consistent  Chris- 
tian, if  he  turns  to  what  Old  Testament  writ- 
ers have  expressed  on  the  subject,  will  re- 
member that  their  statements  are  only  those 
of  men  Avho  lived  centuries  before  Jesus 
came ;  the  weight  of  which  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  fact  of  whether  they  do,  or  do  not, 
agree  with  the  teachings  and  demonstrations 
of  Jesus. 

In  a  word,  we  must  sift  and  group  the 
statements  of  the  Bible,  if  we  want,  from  that 
Book,  to  ascertain  the  truth  about  the  After- 
Life.  In  Class  I,  we  shall  put  the  statements 
of  Christ  as  made  by  Him  before  and  at 
Easter-time;  in  Class  II,  we  shall  place  the 
statements  of  the  w^riters  of  the  Epistles ;  and 
in  Class  III,  we  shall  place  those  of  the  writ- 
ers of  the  Old  Testament.  Class  III  will  con- 
cern us  very  little,  except  as  showing  how 
much  the  mental  old-world  needed  the  light 
of  Christ.  Class  II  will  concern  us  much; 
while  Class  I  mtlII  stand  to  us  as  the  authori- 
tative source  from  which  we  can  derive  the 
knowledge  we  seek.  It  appears  to  me  that  it 
is  only  on  this  principle  of  enquiry  we  can 
proceed,  if  we  would  save  ourselves  from  the 
mental  confusion  which  arises  from  conflict- 

18 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ing  passages  of  Scripture,  and  gain,  from  the 
Bible,  a  definite  idea  and  an  abiding  assur- 
ance of  a  continued  Self  at  death.  I  must 
add  something  with  regard  to  a  difficulty  ex- 
perienced by  many  who  shudder  at  the 
thought  of  the  grave  of  oblivion  for  them- 
selves and  their  dead.  It  is  a  difficulty  which 
has  been  expressed  to  me  by  many  persons. 
It  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows:  "Are 
there  not  statements  of  our  Lord  Himself, 
which  contradict,  or  seem  to  contradict  other 
statements  made  by  Himf  For  example, 
when  in  the  act  of  dying  on  the  cross.  He 
said  to  the  thief  at  His  side,  'To-day  shalt 
thou  be  with  Me  in  Paradise.'  That  state- 
ment, surely,  implied  the  continuance  of  the 
Self  at  physical  death.  And  yet  He  made 
other  statements  which  seem  to  support  the 
idea  that  the  Self  has  no  existence  apart  from 
the  material  body;  and  that  when  the  body 
dies  the  Self  ceases  to  be ;  and  is  only  recalled 
into  existence  by  the  revival  of  the  dead 
body.  Do  not  Christ's  words — 'The  hour 
cometh,  and  now  is  when  the  dead  shall  hear 
the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God'  (John  v.  25); 
'The  hour  cometh,  in  which  all  that  are  in  the 
tombs  shall  hear  His  voice'  (John  v.  28) — 
countenance  this  latter  supposition?" 

19 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

It  is  a  difficulty  which  must  be  swept  away ; 
since  it  is  manifestly  impossible  for  any  one 
to  establish  a  fixed  belief  in  regard  to  this  all- 
important  matter  on  the  basis  of  Christ's 
teaching  if  He  really  did  make  irreconcilable 
statements  respecting  it.  In  that  case  His 
teaching  would  cease  to  be  authoritative  to 
us ;  as  we  could  never  be  certain  as  to  which 
of  the  conflicting  passages  we  should  turn  as 
expressive  of  the  truth. 

What  did  Jesus  mean  by  the  terms  "the 
dead"  and  "in  the  tombs!"  Was  He  assert- 
ing that  He  would  speak  to  lifeless  physical 
remains  then  lying  in  the  grave,  or  which 
had  lain  there  before  they  were  dissipated; 
so  that  those  dead  self -less  things  would  hear 
His  voice,  and  become  Selves  again?  We 
think  not.  When  Jesus  at  an  open  sepulchre 
said,  "Lazarus,  come  forth,"  He  was  not 
speaking  to  a  corrupting  body,  but  to  a  dis- 
carnate  spirit-man,  to  a  Self  whom  the  Mas- 
ter awakened  from  the  temporary  sleep, 
which  often  precedes  and  follows  the  act  of 
detachment  from  the  physical  encasement. 
You  remember  Christ's  words  to  the  disci- 
ples, "Our  friend  Lazarus  is  fallen  asleep; 
but  I  go  that  I  may  awake  him  out  of  sleep. ' ' 
Christ  meant  exactly  what  He  said :  Lazarus 

20 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

himself  was  asleep,  though  his  body  was 
dead.  But  the  disciples  did  not  understand 
the  truth  proclaimed  in  the  words  of  their 
Master;  and  so  in  order  to  make  it  compre- 
hensible to  them  that  Lazarus  was  no  longer 
in  the  flesh,  Christ  had  to  come  down  to  their 
level  of  knowledge  and  expression,  and  to  say- 
plainly,  "Lazarus  is  dead." 

There  is  a  similar  instance  in  the  case  of 
Jairus'  daughter.  There,  in  a  room  of  the 
ruler's  house,  lay  the  dead  body  of  a  little 
girl.  To  the  crowd,  flute-playing,  weeping, 
wailing,  and  making  an  abominable  tumult, 
suggestive  of  despair  and  hopelessness,  the 
Master  said,  "Give  place;  for  the  damsel  is 
not  dead,  but  sleepeth."  He  meant  what  He 
said;  but  "they  laughed  Him  to  scorn." 
When  He  said,  "Damsel,  arise!"  He  was 
not  speaking  to  a  dead  body,  but  to  a  living, 
discarnate  spirit-girl.  St.  Luke  in  narrating 
this  incident  significantly  adds,  "Her  spirit 
returned,  and  she  rose  up  immediately." 
Thus  we  see  that  in  all  those  utterances  of 
Jesus  in  which  He  employs  such  terms  as 
"the  dead,"  "in  the  tombs,"  "in  the 
graves,"  etc..  He  was  countenancing  no  Ma- 
terialistic theory  as  to  the  Self;  He  was  not 
teaching    that    the    ones    who    had    passed 

21 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

through  the  experience  of  physical  dying 
were  no  more  than  dead  things  in  the  graves ; 
He  was  but  simply  making  use  of  a  common 
way  of  speaking,  in  order  to  make  His  un- 
enlightened hearers  understand  to  whom  He 
was  referring.  When  He  said,  "The  hour 
cometh,  and  noiv  is,  when  'the  dead'  shall 
hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God" ;  and  when 
St.  Peter  wrote,  "For  unto  this  end  was  the 
Gospel  preached  even  to  'the  dead,'  that 
they  might  live  to  God  in  the  Spirit,"  neither 
of  them  was  referring  to  lifeless  physical  re- 
mains, but  to  living  selves,  whom  men  called 
"dead." 

Christ,  in  these  statements,  did  precisely 
what  we  constantly  do.  Things  are  spoken 
of  as  they  seem  to  men  to  be.  The  sun  is  said 
to  "rise"  and  "set,"  because  it  appears  to 
travel  round  our  globe ;  and  we  who  adopt  the 
popular  expressions,  do  not  thereby  endorse 
the  scientific  truthfulness  of  them;  but  use 
them  as  the  most  convenient  way  of  referring 
to  the  sun's  position  in  relation  to  the  earth. 
Put  the  words  "the  dead"  in  inverted  com- 
mas, and  read  after  them  "so  called,"  and 
the  difficulty  which  perplexes  many  will  dis- 
appear. 


22 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Another  answer  to  the  question,  "What  of 
our  Self  after  death?"  is  given  by  a  great 
number  of  very  sincere  Christians.  It  is  a 
comfortless  one  for  the  mourner.  I  will  try 
to  define  it  as  correctly  as  I  can.  It  rejects 
the  theory  of  the  Materialist  and  the  Chris- 
tian-Materialist, and  declares  that  the  Self 
does  not  wholly  and  entirely  cease  to  exist, 
even  for  a  while,  when  the  earthly  body  dies ; 
but  that  a  something  of  it,  a  sort  of  vital 
essence,  survives  the  physical  disintegration, 
and  is  preserved.  Thus  a  curtailed  and  di- 
minished Ego  remains.  This  diminished  Ego 
is  not  viewed  as  possessing  the  qualities, 
powers  and  activities  which  we  ascribe  to 
Self-hood  (these,  it  is  supposed,  can  only  be 
possessed  in  conjunction  mth  an  earthly,  or 
a  resurrected  body) ;  but  rather  it  is  thought 
to  be  a  bodiless,  attenuated  entity,  which  in 
some  way  or  another  preserves  the  nucleus 
of  the  Self,  and  is  a  connective  of  the  Self 
as  it  was  before  physical  death,  and  as  it  will 
be  when  the  dead  body  shall  have  been  resur- 
rected. In  other  words,  this  diminished  Ego 
is  regarded  as  being  (if  we  may  so  put  it) 
the  germ  from  which  God  will  one  day  re- 
constitute the  Self  in  its  wholeness.  The 
ideas  held  about  this  surviving  something  are 

23 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

extremely  vague;  and  it  is  hard  to  imagine 
anything  more  disappointing  and  depressing 
to  any  one  who  is  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  of 
his  Self-hood  and  all  it  implies,  than  to  be 
faced  with  the  prospect  of  having  to  come  to 
such  a  condition.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  gather  from  the  statements  of  the  sup- 
porters of  this  theory,  what  remains  of  the 
Self,  after  death  and  until  a  future  Resur- 
rection, is  less  than  the  man.  It  is  supposed 
to  he  little  and  do  little;  except  to  inactively 
wait  for  a  distant  judgment,  and  give  itself 
up  to  anticipations  of  everlasting  bliss  or 
misery.  Certain  theologians,  indeed,  do  teach 
that  some  of  these  bodiless  entities  are  ca- 
pable of  "beatific  visions."  If  one  asks, 
''Are  these  discarnate  vitalities  in  any  sort 
of  bodily  form?"  the  answer  will  be  "No; 
not  until  the  Resurrection-Day ;  they  left  the 
bodily  form  in  the  grave."  "Can  they  re- 
pent, or  amend,  or  mentally  and  spiritually 
advance?"  Again  the  answer  comes,  "No; 
the  opportunities  ceased  when  they  left  this 
earth.  Did  not  St.  Paul  write,  'Noiv  is  the 
day  of  salvation'?"  (And  the  word  "Now" 
is  taken  to  exclude  the  idea  of  salvation  at 
any  other  period :  a  line  of  reasoning  which, 
if  logically  pressed,  ought  to  be  very  discon- 

24 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

certing  to  Christians  who  have  lived  since 
Apostolic  times.) 

"Do  these  discarnate  ones  pray:  and 
should  ive  pray  for  them!"  "I  think  not," 
is  the  reply,  "as  their  destiny,  on  leaving  the 
body  is  unalterably  fixed  for  weal  or  woe. 
What  would  be  the  good  of  their  or  our 
prayers?"  "Do  they  retain  those  feelings  of 
love,  friendship,  sympathy,  and  interest  in 
regard  to  those  with  whom  they  were  asso- 
ciated when  on  earth ? "  "I  should  say  No, ' ' 
is  the  rejoinder,  "because,  you  see,  they  have 
left  this  world  behind,  and  its  affairs  no  lon- 
ger affect  them." 

It  strikes  me,  if  these  notions  be  true,  not 
only  have  the  surviving  Egos  left  the  world 
behind,  but  have  also  left  a  real  Self  be- 
hind. Well!  this  concept  of  our  Self  after 
death  cannot,  and  does  not,  satisfy  those 
upon  whom  the  gloom  of  bereavement  rests. 
How  can  it  1  How,  for  instance,  can  one  who 
has  been  brought  up  to  think  that  these  ideas 
are  true,  and  who  loses  by  death  the  physical 
presence  of  the  one  who  is  dearest,  be  com- 
forted thereby  ?  The  widow  stands  beside  the 
dead  form  of  her  husband,  and  her  heart 
pitiably  calls  out  for  that  departed  Self,  with 
all  its  thoughts,  its  love,  its  tenderness  and 

25 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

concernfulness  for  her.  In  her  anguish  she 
turns  for  consolation  and  calm  to  the  creed 
she  has  been  taught.  It  disappoints  her.  It 
has  naught  to  say  of  a  still  unaltered  Self. 
It  does  not  tell  her  that  the  one  she  loves  is 
still  thinking  of  her,  loving  her  and  praying 
for  her  in  the  sphere  into  which  he  has 
passed.  It  does  not  tell  her  that  her  poor, 
torn  heart  will  find  relief  and  rest  in  praying 
for  him.  She  needs  the  bread  of  true  Gospel 
assurance,  and  gets  but  the  cold  stone  of  a 
doctrinal  notion.  Poor  soul!  she  darkens  the 
house,  and  dons  the  black  emblems  of  unhope- 
fulness  and  despair,  and  makes — as  it  were — 
a  solemn  proclamation  to  others  that  her  re- 
ligion has  not  lifted  from  her  *'the  shadow  of 
death. ' ' 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  how  is  it  possible  in 
the  face  of  what  Christ  taught  and  demon- 
strated as  to  unimpaired,  undiminished,  and 
enhanced  Self-hood  after  death  that  in  the 
past  a  great  number  of  Christians,  and,  at 
the  present  time,  a  still  considerable  number, 
have  held,  and  still  hold,  the  opinions  ex- 
pressed above?  Suppose  the  four  Gospel- 
Records  were,  for  the  first  time,  placed  in 
the  hands  of  an  enquirer,  who  possessed  no 
antecedent  knowledge   of  what  theologians 

26 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

and  others  had  previously  said  or  written 
on  this  subject.  To  what  conclusion  do  you 
think  he  would  arrive?  If  he  accepted  as 
true,  the  Gospel-Records  of  what  Christ  said 
and  demonstrated  in  His  Person,  as  to  Life 
beyond  the  grave,  he  would  at  once  perceive 
the  contrariety  between  the  statements  of  the 
Gospel-Records  and  other  Canonical  and 
Theological  statements;  and  he  would  say, 
* '  To  which  set  of  statements  am  I  to  pin  my 
belief?"  He  would  not  be  in  any  difficulty. 
He  would  say  to  himself,  "H  I,  as  a  Chris- 
tian, am  called  upon  to  accept  these  Gospel- 
Records  as  truth,  I  do  not  think  I  need 
trouble  myself  about  what  any  other  persons 
may  have  said;  except  so  far  as  they  do  not 
contradict  the  Gospel-Records,  and  may  help 
me  the  better  to  understand  their  full  signifi- 
cance." Do  not  let  this  remark  shock  the 
ideas  of  any  who  hold  that  a  belief  in  the 
plenaiy  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  is  a 
pre-requisite  for  ''Orthodoxy."  We  of  the 
Church  of  England  stand  up  in  our  most 
solemn  service  at  the  reading  of  the  Gospel, 
to  show  that  we  attach  more  importance  to 
this  part  of  the  Scripture  than  to  any  other 
part.  But,  unfortunately,  the  ordinary  Chris- 
tian has  been  taught  to  believe  that  all  state- 

27 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ments  found  within  the  covers  of  the  Bible 
are  words  of  Divine  inspiration,  and  some- 
how or  another  must  be  made  to  fit  in  with 
what  he  thinks  he  is  called  upon  to  believe. 
Of  course,  he  gets  into  a  mental  muddle. 
He  reads  the  Old  Testament,  and  finds  there- 
in much  which  presents  the  idea  of  a  dimin- 
ished Self  after  death.  He  notes  what  the 
old-time  Hebrews  thought  about  "Sheol" — 
the  place,  or  condition,  of  the  departed.  It 
tells  no  more  than  of  a  shadowy,  unreal  per- 
sistence of  the  Self.  But  there  it  is  in  the 
Bible.  Then,  perhaps,  he  reads  the  literature 
of  the  ancient  Greeks,  and  finds  expressed 
the  same  idea  of  the  shadowy  Self,  associa- 
ted wdth  the  word  "Hades."  Lastly,  he  does 
that  which  is  glaringly  inconsistent  on  the 
part  of  any  one  who  professes  to  attach  su- 
preme authority  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 
He  attributes  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  no- 
tions of  the  After-Life  an  importance  which 
they  do  not  possess,  and  uses  them  as  a  coun- 
ter-balance to  the  declarations  of  the  Gospel- 
Records;  and  essays  the  impossible  task  of 
making  these  contrarieties  concordant.  Of 
course,  he  fails ;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that 
we  place  this  theory  of  the  diminished  Self 

28 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

after  death  as  one  of  the  wrong  answers  to 

the  "Great  Enquiry." 

*        *         *         * 

We  come  now  to  another  kind  of  answer 
which  is  very  often  given  to  the  great  En- 
quiry ;  and  given  by  those  who  are  really  sin- 
cere Christians.  They  may,  I  think,  not  in- 
aptly be  called  ^^ Christian-Agnostics.^^  The 
word  "Agnostic,"  I  know  has  an  unpleasant 
sound  in  Christian  ears ;  and,  of  course,  I  do 
not  mean  that  these  good  people  are  in  the 
agnostic  position  with  regard  to  the  whole 
body  of  Christian  truth,  but  only  with  respect 
to  the  subject  of  the  After-Life.  Their  men- 
tal attitude  on  that  subject  is  embodied  in  the 
words,  "We  don't  know."  It  has  been  my 
experience  to  come  into  contact  with  very 
many  who,  in  their  time  of  bereavement,  have 
received  from  Christian  friends,  and  even 
clergymen,  such  an  answer.  I  give  but  one 
example  out  of  a  great  number.  Quite 
recently,  a  lady  was  telling  me  of  a  visit  of 
condolence  which  was  made  to  her  by  the 
clergjTuan  of  the  parish,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  death  of  her  son.  "He  was  most  kind 
and  sjTnpathetic,"  she  said,  "but  he  had  not 
a  single  word  to  say  that  could  comfort  me 
a  tiny  scrap  in  my  grief."    She  asked  him, 

29 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

did  he  think  her  boy  was  remembering  and 
loving  her  still?  From  a  child  he  had  always 
prayed  for  her;  would  he  continue  to  do  so? 
AVas  it  right  for  her  to  continue  her  prayers 
for  him?  and  a  number  of  other  questions, 
which  sorrow-stricken  ones  do  ask  themselves 
and  others  when  a  beloved  bodily  presence  is 
removed.  The  cleryman  was  embarrassed; 
quoted  something  as  to  the  blessedness  of 
the  dead;  and  then,  when  pressed  for  some- 
thing more  definite,  said:  "Well!  you  see,  we 
do  not  know  about  these  things;  we  must 
trust  and  wait."  This  advice  was  excellent, 
but  it  did  not  help  the  lady.  Many  have 
experienced  this  sort  of  thing.  The  Christian 
sympathizer  comes  to  the  mourner  with  his 
kind  words  of  condolence;  with  a  sincere 
desire  to  comfort,  he  may  quote  a  few  re- 
ligious phrases  concerning  a  far-off  Heaven, 
and  a  reunion  on  a  distant  Resurrection-Day; 
but  no  more :  if  he  has  any  views  at  all  about 
a  still  existing  Self  after  death,  they  are  far 
too  misty  and  undefined  to  be  translated  into 
speech.  The  Christian  Agnostic  is  out  of 
place  at  a  death-bed,  or  beside  a  ''Rachel 
weeping  for  her  children,"  who  cannot  be 
comforted  because  she  thinl^s  they  are  not. 
I  suppose  there  is  not  one  of  my  readers  who, 

30 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

when  a  dear  one  has  been  taken,  has  not 
felt  an  awful  void  and  want  of  something, 
which  the  commonly-accepted  ideas  of  what 
we  are  after  death  have  not  filled  and  satis- 
fied. The  "Don't  know"  theory  as  to  what  of 
our  Self  after  death  has  given  a  pathetically 
undue  importance  to  the  grave.  How  forcibly 
have  I  experienced  this!  Wlien  I  was  nine- 
teen, my  sister,  a  girl  of  seventeen,  died ;  and 
I  felt  her  death  very  much.  A  year  later, 
my  father  died.  Their  earthly  bodies  were 
laid  in  the  same  grave.  I  was  earnestly- 
minded,  and  used  to  read  the  religious  books 
of  that  time,  and  to  thoughtfully  listen  to 
what  I  heard  in  Church.  All  I  read  and 
heard  seemed  to  me  to  be  agnostic  in  regard 
to  a  continuance  of  the  Self  at  death.  As  far 
as  I  could  gather  from  the  books,  the  tracts 
and  the  sermons  of  that  time,  the  good  dead 
were  ''asleep  in  Jesus,"  and  would  not  wake 
up  again  until,  perhaps,  thousands  of  years 
hence.  Then  I  mentally  pictured  a  ghastly 
representation  which  still  stands,  I  believe,  at 
the  gateway  of  a  London  church.  It  is  fear- 
ful in  its  crudity  of  idea  and  hideousness. 
Carved  in  stone  is  the  old  theological  concep- 
tion of  shattered  tombs  and  bursting  coffins, 
with  the  long  since  dead  Selves  coming  to 

31 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

life  again.  Well,  at  that  time,  I  supposed  that 
this  awful  grotesqueness  was  a  presentiment 
of  Gospel-truth;  so  I  used  to  go  on  Sunday 
afternoons  to  the  spot  where  lay  the  bodies  of 
my  father  and  sister,  and  think  of  them  as 
there ;  both  of  them  dead,  of  course,  but  not 
to  be  always  so.  The  thought  solemnised  me : 
perhaps  it  religionised  me ;  but  it  did  not  sat- 
isfy a  heart-cry  for  living  instead  of  dead 
dear  ones. 

Thirty-seven  years  later,  I  stood  beside  the 
grave  of  my  mother ;  and  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  Burial  Service  of  our  Church,  I  said  the 
following  prayer.  I  give  it  here  only  because 
it  may  illustrate  how  great  is  the  difference 
in  the  outlook  of  a  Christian  who  can  only 
say,  in  regard  to  the  discarnate  Self,  "We 
don't  know:  it  is  all  mystery,"  and  the  out- 
look expressed  in  this  prayer : 

''Almighty  and  Eternal  Father,  we  bless 
Thy  holy  name  that  Thou  hast  revealed  to 
us  by  Thy  Son  the  glorious  fact  that  those 
who  have  departed  this  life  still  live  unto 
Thee,  and  that  physical  death  does  but  usher 
us  into  more  abundant  life.  AVe  commend 
to  Thy  loving  care  her  whom  Thou  hast  call- 
ed into  Higher  being  and  experience ;  whose 
mortal  body  we  commit  to  this  grave.  Grant 

32 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

that  all  wliicli  is  good  in  her  may  be  developed 
and  perfected ;  that  all  which  may  have  been 
weak  and  faulty  may  be  eliminated  from  her. 
Grant  that  in  that  life  of  Unfoldment  and 
Advance  into  which  she  has  passed,  she  may 
grow  to  a  fuller  knowledge  and  love  of  Thee, 
until  she  shall  become  the  spirit  of  a  just 
w^oman  made  perfect ;  and  be  fashioned  into 
the  moral  and  spiritual  likeness  of  Christ. 
Give  her  happiness,  re-union  with  loved  ones 
gone  hence,  and  that  Peace  of  Thine  which 
towers  above  mind,  and  make  her  to  be  num- 
bered "s^ith  Thy  Saints  in  glory  everlasting. 
We  pray  also,  that  uplifting  influences  from 
her  expanding  spirit  may  reach  and  help  us 
as  we  pass  along  the  highway  of  the  Tempo- 
ral to  the  Eternal.  Hear  this  prayer.  Divine 
Father,  for  we  ask  it  in  the  Name  of  the  great 

Lover  of  Souls,  Jesus,  Thy  Son.   Amen." 

*         *         *         * 

There  remains  still  another  kind  of  wrong 
answer  which  is  presented  to  one  who  asks, 
''What  of  our  Self  after  death!"  It  consists 
not  so  much  in  what  is  actually  stated  in 
words,  but  in  ideas  suggested  by  outward 
things  connected  with  death  and  burial. 
Perhaps  I  can  best  define  what  I  mean  by 
calling  it,  the  obscuration  of  the  true  answer 

33 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

to  the  great  Enquiry  by  the  Customs  and 
Religious  Practices  of  Christendom.  Of 
course,  I  am  only  speaking  of  those  customs 
and  practices  which  group  themselves  about 
the  incidents  of  death  and  burial.  Those 
customs  seem  to  eclipse  the  truth  concerning 
the  departed  Self,  as  that  truth  gleams  forth 
from  the  Gospel-Eecords.  A  thoughtful  per- 
son who  believes  that  at  death  the  Self  con- 
tinues to  live;  that  there  is  not  then  a 
diminishing,  but  an  enhancing  of  its  powers ; 
and  that,  moreover,  transition  means  mental, 
moral  and  spiritual  advancement,  detects  a 
very  real  incongruity  between  those  truths 
and  the  ouhvard  order  of  things  connected 
with  physical  death.  ''Why  is  it,"  he  asks, 
"that  Christendom,  which,  surely,  as  a  whole, 
believes  in  maintained  life  at  death,  never- 
theless, by  her  customs  and  practices  belies 
that  truth  1 ' '  The  outwardness  does  not  agree 
with  the  imvardness  of  this  matter;  and  as 
persons  very  usually  form  their  ideas  from 
the  outwardness  of  things,  it  follows  that, 
for  many  Christians,  tnith  becomes  obscured 
on  this  account.  It  is  most  unfortunate ;  and 
it  ought  not  to  be  so.  I  believe  that  the 
Christian  Church  throughout  the  world  would 
be  an  enormously  greater  influence  than  she 

34 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

is  in  comforting  the  bereaved,  and  in  open- 
ing men's  mental  eyes  to  what  they  are  as 
spirit  Egos,  if  only  she  would  make  her  cus- 
toms and  practices  agree  less  with  the  wrong 
idea  of  death,  and  more  with  the  thought 
of  Christ  concerning  it. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  those  customs  and 
practices  of  Christians,  which  obscure  and 
belie  the  truth  as  to  the  departed  Self.  First, 
there  is  that  custom  of  making  hlack  the  no- 
tification to  our  fellows  that  someone  or  an- 
other belonging  to  us  has  left  this  life,  and 
gone,  we  believe,  into  "more  abundant  life." 
There  must  be  the  darkened  house,  the  black 
clothes,  the  black-edged  envelopes,  the  black- 
bordered  handkerchiefs,  the  black  funeral 
horses;  and,  until  comparatively  lately,  the 
black  coffin,  the  black  pall,  and  those  mon- 
strosities— the  black  mutes.  And,  if  the  de- 
parted one  be  sufficiently  important,  the  very 
House  of  God  itself  will  be  disfigured  by  the 
symbols  of  despair.  How  absolutely  and 
glaringly  inconsistent  to  mark  our  respect 
for  a  dear  one  "passed  over,"  by  using  a 
universally  recognised  emblem  of  gloom  and 
hopelessness!  Do  we  wonder  that  the  non- 
Christian  man  notes  it  all,  and  mentally  asks 
whether  those  Christians  really  believe  what 

35 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

they  profess?  I  suppose  that,  on  the  whole, 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  held  a  more 
fixed  idea  on  the  subject  of  continued  Life 
at  death,  than  many  of  the  churches  of 
Christendom;  and  yet,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  it  is  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  that 
one  sees,  side  by  side  with  this  belief  in 
maintained  life,  the  profusest  display  of  the 
black  paraphernalia  of  woe  and  death. 

Some  few  years  ago,  I  was  asked  by  a 
brother  clergyman  if  I  would  preach  in  his 
church  on  All  Souls'  Day.  In  inviting  me, 
he  stated  that  in  the  ceremonial  there  were 
things  to  which  he  thought  I  might  object — 
e.  g.,  a  black  catafalque,  black  copes  and 
black  stoles,  etc. ;  but  would  I  not  waive  this 
point  and  come? 

I  replied  that  I  would  do  so;  and  that  it 
was  not  his  ritualism  to  which  I  took  excep- 
tion, but  his  s^Tiibolisation,  which  was  all 
wrong:  that  any  amount  of  white  copes  or 
other  vestments  would  not  offend  me,  pro- 
vided they  suggested  the  true  thought  of  All 
Souls'  Day — continued  life  and  immortality; 
but  to  try  and  focus  the  mind  of  persons 
upon  a  Life  beyond  the  grave  by  a  cere- 
monial which  suggested  the  charnal-house, 
did  not  accord  with  my  idea  of  the  fitness  of 

36 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

things.  I  took  into  the  pulpit  one  of  the  leaf- 
lets distributed  in  the  church.  It  was  a  black- 
bordered  sheet  with  the  words,  ' '  Prayers  for 
the  Dead.''  I  told  the  congregation  I  knew 
what  the  church  means  by  the  phrase;  that 
although  I  did  not  believe  in  prayers  for  the 
dead,  I  did  in  prayers  for  the  living ;  that  I 
constantly  prayed  both  for  ''the  faithful" 
and  non-faithful  departed ;  and  that  I  did  so 
because  I  believed  the  words  of  the  text  I  had 
chosen,  "All  souls  are  mine"  (Ez.  xviii.  4) ; 
' '  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living"  (Matt.  xxii.  32).  This  little  incident 
will  illustrate  what  I  mean  in  asserting  that 
the  glorious  truth  of  continued  Life  at  death, 
earnestly  believed  by  Christians  themselves, 
is  often,  by  their  customs  and  practices,  made 
as  if  dim  and  unreal  to  others. 

Again,  take  the  customs  which  have  pre- 
vailed in  respect  to  the  memorials  erected  in 
our  Christian  churchyards  and  burial-places. 
Some  of  those  memorials  are  very  inappro- 
priate from  the  standpoint  of  enlightened 
Christian  thought.  The  character  of  such 
has  been  marvelously  improved  during  the 
past  thirty  or  forty  years,  but  there  is  plenty 
of  room  for  further  improvement. 

But  go  into  some  of  our  old  churchyards, 
37 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

and  forgetting  for  a  while  the  appealing 
charm  and  restfulness  of  the  place,  look  at 
the  old  monuments  and  stones,  and  the  in- 
scriptions thereon.  It  is  an  interesting, 
though  a  saddening,  study.  How  far  below 
the  level  of  full  Christian  thought  do  many 
of  those  inscriptions  fall !  Here,  on  one,  the 
visitor  will  read  that  John  Smith  was  cut  off 
in  the  prime  of  manhood  and  is  lying  there 
in  the  dust  until  the  trump  of  the  Archangel 
shall  awaken  him  to  life  again.  By  another 
stone  he  will  be  told  that  King  Death  will  do 
to  him  what  he  did  to  the  late  Jones  esquire. 
By  other  gravestones  he  will  be  reminded 
that  "In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death," 
and  that  "All  flesh  is  as  grass,"  and  so  on. 
Some  of  it  very  true;  but  naught  of  it  con- 
veying the  least  thought  concerning  contin- 
ued life  at  death.  And  yet  that  truth  of  the 
Christian  religion  is  the  all-important  one  to 
be  expressed  in  anything  associated  with 
churchyards  and  burials.  Strange,  very 
strange ! 

Suppose  that  we  were  to  bring  an  educated 
Hindoo,  for  the  first  time,  into  one  of  our 
churchyards  or  cemeteries  and  to  show  him 
the  memorials  put  up  by  Christians  to  their 
departed  friends.    The  Hindoo  might   say, 

38 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

^'You  Christians  believe,  do  you  not,  that  the 
person  whose  earthly  body  lies  here  is  now 
living  in  another  world?  Your  religion 
teaches,  does  it  not,  that  the  man  himself  is, 
like  the  God  who  made  him,  a  spiritual  be- 
ing; and  that  this  perishing  body  in  the 
ground  (if  there  is  anything  left  of  it)  is  no 
more  the  man  himself  than  the  discarded 
coat  he  once  wore  was  his  body?" 

As  a  Christian,  your  answer  would  be,  or 
ought  to  be,  in  the  affirmative.  Then  sup- 
pose that  the  thoughtful  Hindoo  were  to  look 
around  and  were  to  ask, ' '  Why  do  you  Chris- 
tians put  a  broken  column  here,  and  an  in- 
verted touch  there,  and  a  funeral-urn  on  that 
tomb,  and  a  figure  of  a  despair-stricken 
woman  on  the  other ;  and  horror !  a  grinning 
skull  and  cross-bones  on  the  grave-stones? 
What  funny  people  you  Christians  are ! ' ' 

Probably,  in  order  to  try  and  clear  your 
co-religionists  from  the  charge  of  being  in- 
consistent, you  would  point  out  to  your  Hin- 
doo friend  that  those  representations  of  cur- 
tailed life  and  destruction  refer  only,  of 
course,  to  the  earthly  condition.  I  can  imag- 
ine the  reply  of  the  Hindoo,  "The  dead 
body!  the  dead  body  is  not  the  living  man. 
You  point  only  to  the  discarded  coat,  and  not 

39 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

to  the  man  who  wore  it  for  a  while."  And 
methinks  that  thoughtful  one  would  go  away- 
wondering,  as  other  thoughtful  ones  are  won- 
dering, tvhy  it  is  that  Christians  are  obscur- 
ing a  beautiful  truth  of  their  Creed  by  rep- 
resentations which  belie  it.  Further,  is  there 
not  an  obscuring  of  the  truth  concerning  a 
liviiig  Self  after  death,  in  many  of  the  hymns 
which  are  sung  by  Christians  ?  Many  of  the 
statements  made  in  them  are  contradictory; 
and  bewildering,  if  not  to  the  Christian  him- 
self, at  least  to  others.  It  might  reasonably 
be  asked  by  one  not  versed  in  the  peculiari- 
ties of  religious  diction,  "Which  of  these  op- 
posite statements  do  the  Christians  them- 
selves believe?"  Take  for  example,  the 
words  of  a  well-known  hymn  (401  a.  and  m.)  : 

"Earth  to  earth,  and  dust  to  dust," 
Calmly  now  the  words  we  say, 

Leaving  him  to  sleep  in  trust 
Till  the  Resurrection  day. 

Father,  in  Thy  gracious  keeping 

Leave  we  now  Thy  servant  sleeping. 

But  is  this  tnie,  in  the  light  of  full  Christian 
knowledge?  That  which  is  "earth  and  dust," 
and  has  become  by  disintegration  and  decay 
more  pronouncedly  "earth  and  dust,"  is 
surely  not  the  ''him";  and  if  the  Gospel- 
Records  are  true,  the  departed  Egos  are  not 

40 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

sleeping,   but   awake,   and   keenly   alive   to 
spiritual  realities. 

In  another  hymn  (402),  also,  there  are 
statements  which  oppose  each  other.  In 
verse  one,  a  departed  little  child,  is  described 
as  asleep  in  a  grave : 

Oh,  how  peaceful,  pale  and  mild, 
In  its  narrow  bed  'tis  sleeping. 

In  verse  two  the  same  little  child  is  declared 
not  to  be  in  that  grave  at  all: 

Clothed  in  robes  of  spotless  white, 
Now  it  dwells  with  Thee  in  light. 

Ask  the  bereaved  Christian  parents  who 
stand  by  that  grave-side,  which  of  these  two 
statements  they  believe,  and  they  will,  of 
course,  say  "The  latter."  But  why,  we  ask, 
make,  and  sanctify  by  Christian  use,  such 
ambiguous  and  incorrect  statements,  which 
are  so  calculated  to  create  uncertainty  as  to 
the  Self  at  death  *?  Can  we  wonder  that  so 
many  (as  I  know  from  long  experience)  be- 
come confused,  when  even  Christian  teachers 
confound  (in  speech  at  all  events)  the  lifeless 
object  in  the  grave  with  the  living  Self  else- 
where. 

Not  long  ago,  I  went  to  see  the  newly- 
erected  lych-gate  of  a  church.  It  bore  the  in- 

41 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

scription  of  words  from  Job  xix.  26  (wrongly 
translated,  as  they  are  in  the  Burial  Serv- 
ice), ''Though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy 
this  bod}^,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God." 
I  remember  wondering  whether  the  simple- 
minded  villagers,  who  passed  and  read  it, 
knew  that  what  Job  said  was,  ''Without  my 
flesh  shall  I  see  God";  and  that  although 
the  Church  knows  this  she  still  re-iterates 
the  contrary  to  what  he  said.  I  wondered, 
also,  if  they  remembered  those  words  of  St. 
Paul,  which  many  of  them,  with  heavy 
hearts,  had  often  heard,  "Flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  neither 
doth  corruption  inherit  incorruption"  (1 
Cor.  XV.  50).  And  I  wondered,  too,  if  those 
who  read  the  inscription  gathered  from  it 
that,  when  their  dead  body  would  be  carried 
through  that  gateway,  they  would  be  dead 
until  the  flesh  revived. 

Surely,  in  such  cases  as  these,  the  great 
truth  about  the  departed  Self  is  obscured ! 

In  passing  now  from  what  I  may  call  the 
negative  aspect  of  my  subject,  to  the  posi- 
tive; from  what  I  consider  the  wrong  an- 
swers to  the  right  answer  to  the  Great  En- 
quiry, the  reader  may,  perhaps,  ask  why  it 
has  been  thought  necessary  to  consider  at  all 

42 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

those  wrong  answers.  My  purpose  in  doing 
so  has  been  two-fold.  Firstly,  I  have  adopted 
the  method  of  the  artist  who,  in  wishing  a 
figure  of  light  in  his  picture  to  stand  forth 
in  sharp  relief,  fills  in  a  background  of  con- 
trast. I,  too,  have  supposed  that  the  Truth 
about  our  Self,  as  gathered  from  Christ,  will 
gleam  upon  minds  the  brighter,  when  flung 
into  contrast  with  the  gloomy  and  imperfect 
notions  which  have  been  held.  Secondly,  in 
dealing  with  these  wrong  answers,  I  have 
had  to  consider  how  it  came  about  that  such 
have  been  given.  Perhaps,  in  doing  this,  I 
may  have  helped  to  clear  away,  for  some, 
certain  difficulties  which  may  hitherto  have 
stayed  back  the  mind  from  a  clearer,  fuller 
and  more  satisfjdng  perception  of  the  truth 
concerning  ourselves. 


43 


THE  ANSWER  FROM  CHRIST  TO  THE 
GREAT  ENQUIRY. 

My  effort  now  will  be  to  show  to  those  who 
may  be  bewildered  by  the  conflicting  pro- 
nouncements of  the  Schools  of  Religious 
Thought,  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true 
answer  to  the  question,  "What  of  our  Self 
after  death?"  as  it  may  be  gathered  from 
what  Christ  Himself  taught,  and  demonstra- 
ted in  His  own  Person.  I  will  ask  the  reader 
to  keep  in  mind  one  or  two  very  important 
points.  The  first  is,  that  it  must  be  admitted 
that  what  Christ  taught  and  showed  on  this 
subject  is  of  vastly  more  importance  and  au- 
thority in  arriving  at  the  truth,  than  any- 
thing that  other  persons  may  have  said.  If 
Christ  be  acknowledged  as  "the  Truth,"  it 
is  manifestly  illogical  to  account  the  state- 
ments of  others  as  possessing  the  authority 
and  determinative  worth  of  His  statements 
and  demonstrations;  be  those  others.  Old 
Testament  writers.  Fathers  or  Schoolmen  of 
the    Church,    modern    Expositors,    or    even 

44 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Apostolic  men.  And  yet  that  has  been  done. 
It  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding  pages 
into  what  mental  confusion  even  great  Chris- 
tian thinkers  can  be  thrown  by  the  setting 
aside  of  this  fundamental  principle.  From 
the  time  of  Christ  until  now,  Traditionalism 
has  ever  blinded  men  to  the  full  truth  of 
what  the  Master  taught.  Every  Christian 
ought  to  say,  in  respect  to  everything  sub- 
mitted to  him  for  belief,  "Is  this,  or  is  it  not, 
in  agreement  with  the  revealments  of  the 
Divine  Founder  of  our  Faith?" 

In  the  next  place,  the  reader  must  real- 
ise the  great  importance  to  us  (in  obtaining 
the  knowledge  we  seek)  of  the  After-Death 
experiences  of  our  Lord  Himself.  They  will 
bear  a  significance  not  usually  attached  to 
them.  They  will  become  the  best  means  by 
which  we  shall  be  able  truly  to  answer  the 
Great  Enquiry. 

What  is  the  generally  received  belief  as  to 
the  experiences  of  Jesus  after  His  body  died 
on  the  cross?  Is  it  not  that  those  experiences 
were  absolutely  unique ;  that  they  could  come 
only  to  Him ;  and  that  they  were  wholly  un- 
like any  experiences  ive  can  possibly  have  at 
physical  death  ? 

It  is  supposed  that  Jesus  was  able  to  mani- 

45 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

fest  Himself  as  a  Being  of  life  and  unim- 
paired Self-hood  at  Easter-time,  because  He 
ivas  the  Son  of  God;  and  that  what  befell 
Him  as  such  was  therefore  entirely  dissimi- 
lar in  principle  from  what  befalls  us  when  we 
come  to  die,  (who  are  not  sons  of  God  in  the 
sense  He  is).  Consequently,  Jesus'  manifes- 
tation of  His  living  Self,  within  a  few  hours 
of  the  Crucifixion,  is  not  viewed  as  giving  any 
ground  for  belief  that  ive,  at  the  time  our 
body  dies,  will  continue  as  living,  unimpaired 
Selves ;  but  must  be  taken  only  as  a  promise 
and  assurance  that  one  of  these  days  we  shall 
have  experiences  similar  to  what  He  had  at 
Easter.  Thus  the  fact  of  the  living  Jesus  of 
Eastertide  does  not  bring  to  the  mourner  the 
comfort  it  ought  to  do.  It  is  not  viewed 
as  the  revelation  of  the  present  condition  of 
the  beloved  one  whose  earthly  body  is  uncon- 
scious in  death.  Like  Martha,  the  mourning 
one,  only  partly  comforted  by  his  Creed,  cries 
out,  "I  know  that  he  shall  rise  again  in  the 
resurrection  at  the  last  day^^;  and  the  signi- 
ficance of  Jesus'  words  are  not  realised,  "I, 
myself,  am  the  Anastasis  (the  Advancement) 
and  the  Life."  ('Eyw  el^l  r\  avacraat?  xat  tq  !^o)t^. 
John  xi.  25.)  As  if  the  Master  had  said  to 
Martha,   ''I  know  what   you   are  thinking. 

46 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

You  are  yearning  for  a  living  instead  of,  as 
you  suppose,  a  dead  brother ;  and  the  thought 
of  a  distant  recalling  of  liim  to  life,  does  not 
meet  your  case.  Look  at  Me,  and  note  what 
mil  happen  to  Me,  when  I,  like  Lazarus,  shall 
have  physically  died.  In  Me  you  will  have 
the  demonstration  of  what  befalls  every  son 
of  Man.  My  after-death  experiences  are  the 
proof  and  pledge  of  it.  That  alone  will  sat- 
isfy your  soul's  deep  longing — I  myself  am 
the  Advancement  and  the  Life. ' '  No,  it  is  not 
true  that  the  experiences  of  Jesus  after 
physical  death  were  unique  on  account  of  His 
being  the  eternal  Son  of  God.  It  is  not  true 
that  those  experiences  of  Him  were  unlike 
any  experiences  we  can  possibly  have  in  dy- 
ing. The  writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  He- 
brews stated  a  fact  which  has  not  been  suffi- 
ciently understood  by  Christians.  "It  be- 
hooved Him  in  all  things  to  be  made  like 
unto  His  brethren"  (Heb.  ii.  17).  That  state- 
ment is  not  true,  if  Jesus  in  those  greatest 
of  all  human  experiences,  the  After-death  ex- 
periences, was  unlike  us.  When  that  murder- 
ed, disfigured,  sacred  Body  hung  on  the  cross 
on  that  Friday  afternoon,  it  was  not  the  dead 
Son  of  God.  As  the  Son  of  God,  He  did  not 
die.  How  could  He?   That  which  constituted 

47 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

His  Sonship  with  God  was  deathless.  How 
could  the  Logos  of  God,  the  magnificent  Spir- 
it-Being one  with  God,  "Who  for  us  men, 
and  for  our  salvation  became  incarnate," 
temporarily  die,  when  His  earthly  Body  be- 
came lifeless  at  Calvary?  Therefore  it  is 
manifestly  misleading  to  consider  Jesus'  dy- 
ing as  a  dying  of  One  who  underwent  that 
experience  only  in  the  character  of  the  Son 
of  God.  The  theological  idea  has  been  held 
that  the  Son  of  God,  as  such,  at  crucifixion, 
temporarily  ceased  to  be ;  but  that  three  days 
afterwards  God  recalled  Him  into  being  in 
order  to  show  that  He  was  pleased  with  and 
accepted  the  great  Sacrifice  of  Love  which 
had  been  made.  We  cannot  accept  this  view. 
We  believe  in  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God,  both 
before,  at,  and  after  His  Incarnation ;  but  we 
do  not  believe  that  the  earthly  Body  in  which 
He  incarnated  was  anything  more,  in  nature 
and  principle,  than  a  physical  human  body. 
It  was  worn  by  Him,  for  a  while,  as  "the 
Son  of  Man" ;  the  name  by  which  He  so  often 
defined  Himself.  It  was  because  He  became 
"the  Son  of  Man"  that  He  wore  that  Body. 
It  was  because  as  "the  Son  of  Man"  that 
that  Body  died;  and  it  seems  curiously  incon- 
sistent to   suppose  that,   although   "m   all 

48 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

things  He  was  made  like  unto  His  brethren," 
this  similarity  went  only  so  far  as  His  hav- 
ing a  body  as  they  have,  and  that  body  dy- 
ing, as  theirs  does ;  and  that  at  that  point  the 
similarity  ceased;  and  that  the  After-Death 
experiences  of  Jesus  were  not  at  all  like  what 
His  brethren  have.  We  think  that  Jesus  died 
as  we  lesser  sons  of  man  must  die — with  the 
Self  unharmed  by  dying;  and,  that  He  who 
when  His  Body  lay  in  Joseph's  tomb,  was 
^^'ith  a  departed  thief  in  Paradise,  and  with 
once  disobedient  ones  in  Spirit-Life,  was 
then  what  every  one  of  us  will  be  at  dying — 
a  Self  maintaining  all  that  constitutes  real 
Self -hood.  This  is  the  foundation-truth  upon 
which  I  base  all  I  have  yet  to  say. 

I  would  ask  the  reader  to  keep  in  mind 
also  one  other  point.  It  will  certainly  help 
in  giving  weight  to  the  conclusions  which  are 
here  set  forth.  It  is  this.  How  marvelously 
the  statements  of  many  of  the  leading  men 
of  science  in  this  age  confirm  those  conclu- 
sions, based  as  they  are  upon  the  fact  of  our 
Lord's  manifestations  of  Himself  at  that 
Easter-tide.  If  we  accept  the  testimony  of 
many  who  stand  foremost  in  the  ranks  of 
science  to-day,  we  are  faced  with  the  fact  that 
experiences  similar  to  those  which  came  to 

49 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Jesus  after  death,  can,  and  do,  come  to  those 
who  cross  the  Border-line. 

A  very  wonderful  change  has  come  over 
the  world  of  Scientific  Thought  during  the 
past  thirty  or  forty  years.  The  leading  men 
of  science  at  this  present  time,  no  longer 
view  the  subject  of  the  Self  as  the  scientists 
of  the  last  generation  viewed  it.  The  Self  is 
no  longer  accounted  for  by  any  hypothesis 
of  the  Material.  The  facts  of  Psychology  and 
Psychic  Phenomena  have  been  very  carefully 
studied  and  investigated,  and  crowds  of 
things  which  the  good  Christian  has  been 
taught  to  believe  could  only  have  happened 
in  Bible  times,  are  now  scientifically  acknowl- 
edged to  be  present-day  experiences.  There 
are  men  in  the  forefront  of  science  who  now 
admit  that  our  Self  after  death  is  an  unim- 
paired living  reality,  as  Jesus'  Self  was; 
tha4;,  then,  it  can  think,  remember,  desire, 
love,  sympathise,  purpose,  and  can  feel  the 
*'puir'  of  old  associations,  as  could  Christ's 
Self ;  and  that  it  can,  at  times,  under  certain 
conditions,  manifest  itself  to  those  in  earth- 
life,  as  Christ's  Self  did.  I  quote  the  words 
of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  (the  author  of  "The 
Survival  of  Man")  spoken  recently.  They 
are  words,  I  think,  far  more  calculated  to 

50 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

comfort  the  mourner,  and  to  open  the  mind 
to  the  full  significance  of  the  Gospel-Records, 
than  many  of  the  words  heard  from  the  pul- 
pits, or  read  in  the  books  of  the  churches  of 
Christendom.  Sir  Oliver  stated,  in  speaking 
of  the  survival  of  the  soul,  "I  know  that  cer- 
tain friends  of  mine  still  exist,  because  I 
have  talked  to  them.  Communication  is  pos- 
sible. I  tell  you  with  all  the  strength  and 
conviction  I  can  utter,  that  we  do  persist; 
that  people  still  take  an  interest  in  what  is 
going  on;  that  they  still  help  us,  and  know 
far  more  about  things  than  we  do,  and  are 
able  from  time  to  time  to  communicate  with 
us." 

Here,  then,  is  a  very  clear  and  definite  an- 
swer to  the  Great  Enquiry,  given  by  one  who, 
starting  years  ago  from  the  agnostic  posi- 
tion, has  reached  a  point  of  settled  convic- 
tion, which  throws  into  unfavourable  con- 
trast the  unsatisfying  and  halting  pronounce- 
ments of  many  'Svho  profess  and  call  them- 
selves Christians." 

Can  we,  in  the  light  of  Christ  and  His 
teaching,  come  to  a  like  conviction?    I  think 

so.    Let  us  see. 

«         ♦         *         * 

We  gather  from  Him: 

51 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

I.  That  our  Self  is  not  dependent  for  ex- 
istence upon  the  physical  organisation,  and 
survives  separation  from  it. 

It  is  the  realization  of  this  primary  fact 
which  alone  can  comfort  the  mourner  in  the 
face  of  bereavement,  or  the  dying  one  who  is 
conscious  that  the  sands  of  the  hour-glass  of 
his  earthly  life  are  fast  running  down.  Noth- 
ing else  can  remove  from  either  the  one  or 
the  other  that  sensation  of  blankness  and 
desolation  which  chills  the  mind  when  Death 
has  come  to  one  we  love,  or  is  fast  coming 
to  us.  You  know  what  I  mean.  You  have  had 
the  first  of  those  experiences ;  and  the  recol- 
lection of  it  often  haunts  you  in  your  quiet 
moments.  You  remember,  do  you  not  I  how, 
with  a  great  feeling  of  void  within  you,  you 
went  into  that  blind-drawn  chamber  where 
lay  the  body  of  one  so  much  and  so  dear  to 
you.  Or,  if  you  be  one  of  those  who  weep  for 
a  victim  of  this  dreadful  war,  you  have,  when 
alone  in  your  grief,  mentally  pictured  that 
dead  form  of  a  husband,  son,  sweetheart,  or 
friend,  as  it  lies  somewhere  in  the  soil  of  the 
ghastly  battle-field.  ' '  Dead,  dead ! ' '  you  said 
to  yourself,  as  you  looked  at,  or  thought  of, 
such  an  one,  "and  oh!  he  was  so  much  to 
me!"     And,    perchance,    a    kind    Christian 

52 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

friend,  who  knew  only  a  part,  and  not  the 
whole,  of  truth,  spoke  to  you  about  a  restored 
life  and  re-union  in  a  future  Heaven.  It  was 
well-meant ;  but  it  did  not  comfort  you — did 
it?  You  wanted  more — something  much 
more  than  this.  "Dead,  dead!"  you  still 
wailed  within  yourself.  And  suppose  a 
bright-faced  angel  from  the  realms  of  Spirit- 
life — one  perhaps  who  when  on  earth  had 
known  and  loved  you — had  stood  before  you 
in  your  grief,  and  whispered,  ''He  is  not 
dead;  he  lives  whom  you  think  dead," — 
would  you  have  been  comforted  by  those 
Words?  Well,  this  was  just  the  fact  that 
Jesus  came  to  tell  us,  and  to  demonstrate. 
Again,  take  the  case  of  one  who  is  dying,  and 
knows  it.  Suppose  such  an  one  has  no  con- 
ception that  his  Self  will  be  unharmed  and 
uncurtailed  in  the  catastrophe  which  is  soon 
to  befall  his  body,  nor  any  fixed  conviction 
that  he  will  be  alive  when  his  body  shall  be 
in  a  grave — what  a  miserable,  wretched  out- 
look for  the  poor  dying  one!  Not  to  know 
whether  at  death  anything  of  him  which  can 
think,  feel,  love,  remember  and  desire,  will 
remain;  to  imagine  that  his  Self,  perhaps, 
may  be  chloroformed  by  Death  into  a  condi- 
tion, at  least,  of  suspended  Self -hood!    The 

53 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

good  clergyman  may  come  to  his  bedside,  and 
try  to  cheer  him  by  speaking  of  the  contrast 
as  presented  in  the  transitoriness  of  things 
eartlily  and  the  permanency  and  blessedness 
of  the  "world  to  come."  But  it  only  partly 
lifts  the  oppression  which  is  weighing  down 
the  soul  of  that  dying  one. 

He  listens,  and  cheerlessly  thinks.  He  real- 
ises, of  course,  that  the  things  of  earth  are 
fleeting.  Is  not  that  last  view  of  the  pano- 
rama of  his  own  earthly  experience  being 
solemnly  unrolled  for  him?  Does  he  not  even 
now  hear  the  click  of  the  mental  apparatus 
which  tells  him  that  the  picture  will  soon 
have  faded  from  his  sight!  How  those  words 
he  has  so  often  sung  in  church  come  back  to 
him!  What  a  melancholy  ring  they  have! 
How  suitable  for  him,  if  he  just  alters  the 
words  "years"  and  "seasons"  to  "days" 
and  "hours" — 

A  few  more  years  shall  roll, 
A  few  more  seasons  come, 
And  we  shall  be  with  those  that  rest 
Asleep  within  the  tomb. 

Of  course,  as  a  Christian,  he  believes  that 
somewhere — in  a  far-off  age,  perhaps — there 
will  be  a  Heaven  of  recovered  manhood ;  but 
oh !  between  the  now  and  that  distant  Future, 

54 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

there  yawns  a  gulf  of  unknowableness.  How 
the  thought  chills  and  darkens  his  soul! 
What  will  he  be  in  that  interval  between  his 
funeral  and  the  Day  of  which  he  has  read 
and  been  told,  when  all  the  dead,  dissolved 
and  dissipated  relicts  of  mortality  will  be- 
come reconstituted  men  and  women?  Sup- 
pose that  he  should  find  himself  less  than  the 
Self  he  is,  when  he,  too,  slips  away  with  the 
transient  things  of  earth,  and  plunges  into 
that  After  in  which  he  must  await  the  Fu- 
ture !  Has  not  his  Self -hood  been  fashioned 
and  gro^^^l  and  developed  amid  the  things  of 
the  Temporal?  AVhat  if  the  passing  away  of 
them  should  be  the  removal  of  the  conditions 
by  which  the  7nan  himself  can  be !  Have  not 
many  Christians  taught  this,  and  do  not 
many  others  speak  and  act  as  if  it  were  so? 
How  perplexing  it  all  is ! 

AVhat,  do  you  think,  will  help  and  comfort 
such  a  d>^ng  one  ?  "What  will  take  away  from 
him  ''the  sting  of  death"?  ^Yhat  will  enable 
him  not  to  think  at  all  about  a  dead  thing 
wdthin  the  tomb— euphemistically  described 
as  being  "asleep";  but  of  a  maintained  and 
living  Self?  AMiat  will  give  him,  in  the  hour 
of  dying,  that  calmness  and  imperturbability 
which  St.  Peter  had  when  he  wrote,  "Short- 

55 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ly,  /  must  put  off  this  my  tabernacle,  even  as 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  hath  shewed  me'"? 
We  answer,  nothing  will  do  so,  but  the  ab- 
solute conviction  that  that  which  was  ex- 
pressed by  the  poet  and  demonstrated  by 
Jesus  is  true: 

There  is  no  death!    What  seems  so  is  transition; 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  elysian, 

Whose  portal  we  call  Death. 

A  few  years  ago,  I  was  ministering  at  the 
bed-side  of  a  young  girl  who,  after  a  long 
illness,  was  dying.  It  was  my  last  visit  to 
her.  As  I  entered  the  room,  she  greeted  me 
with  a  smile,  and  said,  "I  am  so  glad  you 
have  come  to-day,  because  I  don't  think  I 
shall  be  here  to-morrow."  I  replied,  "Well, 
suppose  you  are  right,  suppose  God  is  going 
to  call  you  out  of  your  suffering  body — do 
you  mind?"  "Why  should  I  mind?"  she  an- 
swered, "when  I  know  that  it  is  not  /  who 
will  die,  but  only  this  poor  body.  I  shall  not 
be  far  away  from  those  I  love."  "Then  you 
are  sure,"  I  continued,  "that,  without  this 
poor  body,  you  yourself  will  still  be  living, 
with  all  your  thoughts,  memory  and  love,  and 
be  still  the  same  girl  as  you  are;  only  that 
life  will  be  so  much  better  and  fuller  for 

56 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

youT'  "Of  course,  I  am,"  she  rejoined.  I 
prayed  with  her,  and  asked  her  not  to  forget, 
on  the  Other  Side,  to  pray  for  me,  and  to  see 
if  she  could  send  me  thoughts  which  might 
help  me  to  help  others.  I  reminded  her  how 
soon  it  would  be  when  she  would  know  so 
much  more  than  we  here  know.  She  said 
"good-bye"  to  me  with  the  smile  on  her  face, 
and  added,  ' '  I  won 't  forget. ' '  She  had  gone 
next  day.  The  memory  of  the  "passing"  of 
that  girl  suggests  to  me  far  and  away  more 
of  the  thought  of  life  and  immortality,  than 
all  the  gloomy  religious  ceremonial  attached 
to  the  obsequies  of  a  Pope,  or  of  other  church 
dignitaries. 

We  face  now  the  enquiry:  "What  did  our 
Lord  teach  on  the  point,  that  the  Self  is  not 
dependent  for  existence  upon  the  physical 
organization,  and  survives  separation  from 
itr' 

As  the  first  of  His  utterances,  we  place 
those  words  spoken  by  Him  on  the  Cross  to 
a  man  dying  at  His  side.  "This  very  day 
(ffT^nepov)  shalt  thou  be  with  Me  in  Paradise." 
(Luke  xxiii.  43).  Here  is  a  statement  made 
under  the  most  solemn  of  all  circumstances; 
at  a  time  when  it  is  utterly  impossible  to 
imagine  that  Christ's  words  meant  aught  to 

57 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

His  hearer,  but  that  which  they  emphatically- 
state.  The  crucified  malefactor,  with  his  con- 
science awakened  to  spiritual  realities,  had 
focussed  his  thought  on  a  future.  "Jesus," 
he  said,  "remember  me  when  Thou  comest 
into  Thy  Kingdom."  Then  came  the  Mas- 
ter's reply:  "This  very  day,"  which  shifted 
the  man's  thought  from  a  future  to  the  pres- 
ent. He  had  asked  for  a  future  blessing; 
Christ  will  give  him  a  present  one.  But  how 
could  he  receive  that  present  blessing,  if 
Death  on  that  same  day,  would  extinguish 
the  manf  The  "thou"  and  the  "Me,"  in 
Christ's  words,  surely  denote  two  Selves, 
who  would  be  existent  and  together,  apart 
from  their  physical  organizations.  If  the 
Self  has  no  existence  except  in  a  living  phys- 
ical body,  then  the  Master's  words  were  not 
true.  Jesus  and  the  thief,  in  that  case,  could 
not  have  been  together  in  Paradise  on  that 
day;  for  as  that  first  Good  Friday  ended, 
they  had  ceased  to  physically  live;  and  the 
Body  of  Jesus  lay  in  Joseph's  sepulchre,  and 
the  body  of  the  malefactor  in  some  other 
place. 

Take  another  great  utterance  of  Christ.  It 
is  recorded  by  St.  Matthew,  St.  Mark  and 
St.  Lul^e,  "But  as  touching  'the  dead,'  that 

58 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

they  are  being  raised  (eYeJpovxai — present 
tense — not,  shall  he  raised) ;  have  ye  not  read 
in  the  book  of  Moses,  in  the  place  concerning 
the  Bush,  how  God  spake  unto  him,  saying, 
I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of 
Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob?  He  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  (Mark 
xii.  26  and  27).  No  words  of  Christ  are 
stronger  than  these  in  affirming  the  continu- 
ance of  the  Self  at  death.  Let  us  grasp  their 
import. 

This  statement  was  made  by  Jesus  for  the 
direct  purpose  of  showing  that  the  teaching 
of  the  Sadducees  was  utterly  wrong.  This 
Jewish  Sect  denied  the  existence  of  any  Self 
after  death,  and  said  that  there  is  no  res- 
urrection (Anastasis,  i.  e.,  advancement), 
neither  angel  or  Spirit."  These  men  come 
to  our  Lord,  and  ask  a  question  intended  to 
cast  ridicule  upon  the  thought  of  an  After- 
life. ''Whose  wife,  in  that  After-life,  would 
a  certain  woman  be,  who  had  had  seven  hus- 
bands, all  of  whom  and  herself  had  died?" 
Jesus  sweeps  aside  that  question  by  declar- 
ing that  the  ties  and  relationships,  which 
have  no  other  basis  than  the  physical,  are  not 
maintained  in  a  Life  which  is  spiritual.  Then 
He  attacks  their  main  position — their  nega- 

59 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

tion  of  continued  life  after  death.  He  points 
out  to  them  the  cause  of  that  negation.  "Ye 
do  err,  ye  do  greatly  err,  not  knowing  (un- 
derstanding) the  Scriptures."  Then  Jesus 
proceeds  with  His  argument:  "Years  and 
years  after  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  had 
died,  God,  from  out  a  burning  bush  in  the 
wilderness,  declared  to  Moses  that  He  was 
then  the  God  of  those  physically  dead  men. 
'I  am  (not,  I  once  was,  and  shall  be  again 
one  day)  the  God  of  those  Patriarchs.'  Now, 
He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  liv- 
ing. You  Sadducees  will  admit  that,  of 
course.  No  dead  tilings  can  be  conscious  of 
a  God,  or  of  an>i;hing  else.  That  being  so, 
how  could  God,  at  the  time  He  spoke  to 
Moses,  have  called  Himself  the  God  of  those 
three  defunct  fathers  ('dead,'  as  you  call 
them),  unless  their  Selves  were  then  living." 
We  can  put  the  statement  of  our  Lord  in 
syllogistic  form: 

God  said,  long  after  the  three  Patriarchs 
were  physically  dead,  "I  am  their  God": 
He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living:  Therefore,  those  three  Patriarchs 
were  living  Selves  when  that  declaration 
was  made. 

That  Jesus'  argument  was  of  irresistible 
60 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

force  to  those  who  heard  it,  is  shown  by  the 
comments  of  the  Evangelists,  that  "when  the 
multitudes  heard  it,  they  were  astonished"; 
while  the  Pharisees  accounted  "that  He  had 
put  the  Sadducees  to  silence";  and  the 
Scribes  said,  "Master,  thou  hast  well  said." 
May  I,  in  passing,  make  a  few  remarks 
about  the  Greek  word  ^vdcTaat?  (Anastasis)  ? 
It  occurs  several  times  in  the  Gospel  rec- 
ords of  the  incident  we  have  been  consider- 
ing. It  is  given  as  the  word  used  by  our  Lord 
in  His  discussion  with  the  Sadducees.  In  the 
English  Version  of  the  New  Testament,  it 
has  been  translated  by  the  Latin  word,  "Res- 
urrection"; which  word  conveys  an  idea 
which  is  not  essentially  contained  in  the  word 
*' Anastasis."  "Resurrection"  is  taken  to 
signify  the  resuscitation  and  re-constitution 
of  dead  physical  bodies  on  some  distant  day. 
The  idea  was  voiced  by  Martha,  when  she 
said,  "I  know  that  he  shall  rise  again  in  the 
resurrection  at  the  last  day."  Now,  the  real 
meaning  of  the  word  "Anastasis"  is — a 
making  to  rise  and  leave  a  place,  or  condi- 
tion; a  removal;  an  advancement.  Thus 
there  is  a  very  important  difference  in  the 
signification  of  this  term  and  "Resurrec- 
tion."  The  point  which  concerns  us  is  this: 

61 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

When  Jesus  used  the  word  '^Anastasis"  (or 
the  equivalent  of  it),  did  He  import  into  it 
the  meaning  conveyed  by  the  word  "Resur- 
rection"? If  He  did,  then  His  magnificent 
argument  with  those  Jewish  religious  Mate- 
rialists falls  to  the  ground.  Taking  His  own 
premise,  it  would  only  conduct  us  to  a  false 
conclusion.  Thus,  if  I  may  again  make  use 
of  the  syllogism : 

God  said,  long  after  the  three  Patriarchs 
were  physically  dead,  "I  am  their  God"; 
He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living:  Therefore,  He  is  still  their  God, 
because  one  day  they  will  again  be  made 
alive. 

St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  in  their  account  of 
this  incident,  do  not  represent  our  Lord  as 
saying,  "As  touching theresiirrection (Greek : 
dv(icaTaat<;  )  of  'the  dead,'  "  as  St.  Matthew 
gives  it.  They  write  that  Jesus  said,  "Touch- 
ing 'the  dead'  that  they  are  now  being 
raised"  (lyefpovTat.  Mark  xii.  26);  and  "But 
that  'the  dead'  are  noiv  being  raised"  (same 
word.  Luke  xx.  37).  I  think  if  the  reader 
wall  carefully  weigh  these  points  I  have  sub- 
mitted it  will  enable  him  to  estimate  at  its 
full   value   the   illuminative   nature    of   our 

62 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Lord's  words  to  the  Sadducees,  on  this  great 
subject  of  our  Self  at  death. 

We  pass  now  to  another  instance  of  what 
Christ  taught  as  to  the  continuance  of  the 
Self  at  death.  It  is  contained  in  His  parable 
of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus.    (Luke  xvi.  16 
to  30.)   I  do  not,  at  this  point  of  our  enquiry, 
propose  to   indicate   what,   after   a   careful 
reading  of  this  parable,  may  reasonably  be 
surmised   concerning   the   character   of   the 
experiences   which   may   come   to   us    after 
leaving  earthly  conditions.    To  me,  it  seems 
incredible  that  it  should  not  have  been  the 
intention  of  the  Great  Teacher  by  this  story 
to  foreshadow  them.   It  is  rather  the  imder- 
lying  principle,  the  assumption,  upon  which 
this  story  is  built,  to  which  I  would  direct 
attention.  Upon  what  is  it  based?  AAHiat  was 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus  when  He  told  it  ?  Upon 
the  thought  of  the  Self  as  it  is  at  death.  The 
story  represents  two  men  as  being  conscious- 
ly alive  after  the  experience  of  physical  dis- 
solution. ''The  beggar  died,  and  was  carried 
away  by  the  angels  into  Abraham's  bosom. 
The  rich  man  also  died  and  was  buried ;  and 
in  Hades  he  lifted  up  his  eyes."  Thus  Jesus 
described  the  dead  beggar  and  the  buried 
Dives  as  living  Selves  after  death ;  and  more- 

63 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

over,    made    use    of    two    terms — the    one, 
"Abraham's  bosom,"  used  by  the  Jew,  and 
"Hades,"    used    by   the    Greek — to    denote 
the  condition  of  the  sonl  on  leaving  the  body. 
Now,  suppose  there  were  no  foundation  in 
fact  for  the  belief  in  the  continuance  of  the 
Self  at  death,  do  you  suppose  it  is  compat- 
ible with  the  thought  of  Jesus  as  being  God's 
Great  Eevealer  of  truth,  that  He  should  have 
built  up  a  story  on  an  untruth,  without  the 
least  intimation  that  He  regarded  that  basis 
as  such?    He  must  have  known  that  what 
He  said  in  this  parable  would,  for  genera- 
tions after  Him,  carry  an  enormously  author- 
itative weight  for  those  who  should  acknowl- 
edge His  supremacy  as  Teacher.   Did  Jesus, 
by  countenancing  what  was  not  true,  mis- 
lead us  as  to  what  is  true  ?   That  is  the  diffi- 
culty which  is  presented,  if  it  be  denied  that 
this  parable  gives  our  Lord's  imprimatur  to 
the  truth  that  our  Self  remains  after  death. 
A  lame  kind  of  reply  is  sometimes  given 
to  this  reasoning ;  generally  by  that  class  of 
thinkers  Who  imagine  that  what  Jesus  said 
must  often  be  taken  to  mean  exactly  what 
He    did  not    say.    This    is    what,    by    some 
writers,  we  have  been  asked  to  accept,  viz: 
that  Jesus,  when  He  gave  this  parable,  was 

64 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

setting  forth  in  figurative  language  some 
great  truth  concerning  the  Jewish  nation,  or 
something  else  equally  remote  from  the  ap- 
plication of  the  story.  We  have  been  asked 
to  think  that  when  He  used  the  idea  and  the 
terms  which  imply  the  fact  of  a  Self  after 
death,  He  really  was  not  referring  to  that 
particular  subject  at  all,  and  was  only  em- 
ploying the  idea  and  the  terms  as  a  figure  of 
something  else.  In  other  Words,  that  He  no 
more  endorsed  the  trutlifulness  of  the  figure 
He  used,  than  we  endorse  the  truthfulness  of 
the  fable  of  the  Hare  and  the  Tortoise,  when 
w^e  tell  a  non-persevering  boy  not  to  be  like 
the  hare,  but  to  copy  the  tortoise. 

Well,  this  hypothesis  may  be  ingenious; 
but  we  do  not  believe  it ;  and  we  will  go  fur- 
ther, and  say  that  it  lowers  the  conception  of 
Christ  as  the  Exposer  of  error,  and  the  De- 
clarer of  truth. 

We  believe  that,  in  this  gospel  story,  it 
was  the  intention  of  Jesus  to  point  out  to 
His  hearers  what  might  hereafter  be  the  con- 
sequence of  pride,  selfishness  and  money- 
loving  ("The  Pharisees,"  writes  St.  Luke, 
in  verse  14,  "who  were  lovers  of  money, 
scoffed  at  Him") ;  and  so  the  Master  lifted 
the  veil  of  Life  beyond  the  grave,  and  showed 

65 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

those  money-loving  scoffers  what  might  be. 
If  He  introduced  into  His  story  a  fictitious 
Lazarus  and  a  fictitious  Dives,  He  was  none 
the  less  endorsing  the  belief  held  by  Jew  and 
Greek  that  the  Self  lives  on  through  death. 
Is  it  correct  to  describe  this  story  of  Lazarus 
and  Divesi  as  a  parable  1  I  think  not.  The 
Evangelist  does  not  preface  it,  as  in  other 
cases,  with  the  words,  "He  spake  unto  them 
this  parable. "  Is  it  not  more  than  a  parable  ? 
There  are  some  not  holding  the  view  of  a 
maintained  Self  at  death,  who  try  to  obscure 
the  true  import  of  what  Jesus  said,  by  as- 
serting that  the  condition  of  the  beggar  and 
the  rich  man  was  a  representation  of  what 
will  be  after  a  future  Eesurrection  and 
Judgment:  that  Christ  just  put  into  the  fo- 
cus of  the  Present  what  would  be  in  the  Fu- 
ture. The  answer  to  this  is  very  plain.  The 
other  statements  of  the  story  completely  ex- 
clude this  idea.  Abraham  is  depicted  as  a 
then-living  Self,  and  he  was  not  a  resurrected 
man.  Things  were  going  on  as  usual  on 
earth.  The  rich  man  asks  that  Lazarus  may 
be  sent  to  his  father's  house  to  warn  his  five 
brethren.  There  had  been  no  Resurrection- 
Day  and  Final  Assize.  The  story  itself  con- 
futes the  notion. 

66 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

What,  then,  do  we  gather  from  all  this? 
A  magnificent  fact,  that  the  Son  of  God,  in 
calm  and  earnest  discourse  with  the  leading 
religionists  of  His  time,  deliberately  labelled 
as  truth — the  belief  in  a  living,  conscious  Self 
apart  from  the  encasement  of  the  physical. 

The^e  are  other  statements  of  Jesus,  the 
full  significance  and  truthfulness  of  which 
hinge  upon  the  fact  of  there  being  a  contin- 
uance of  the  Self,  apart  from  the  physical 
body.  I  take  but  one  instance — our  Lord's 
words  spoken  to  Martha.  (I  have  already 
referred  to  them.)  Picture  the  scene.  A 
beloved  friend  of  the  Master;  a  woman, 
grief-stricken  because  her  brother  has  died, 
and  she  knows  that  even  now  the  form  she 
loves  is  becoming  too  horrible  to  look  upon. 
The  Master  is  standing  beside  her.  He  has 
come  a  long  journey,  she  knows,  to  comfort 
Mary  and  her.  If  only  He  had  come  earlier, 
her  brother,  if  touched  by  His  healing  power, 
would  not  have  died.  She  has  told  the  Mas- 
ter so.  "Thy  brother  shall  rise  again,"  He 
says.  Ah !  yes,  she  knows  that ;  the  Kabbi  has 
taught  her  that,  in  the  synagogue.  "And," 
continues  the  quiet,  sympathizing  Master, 
"whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  Me  shall 
never  die.  Believestthou  f/ws.^"  Youremem- 

67 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ber  the  woman's  answer,  "Lord,  I  have  be- 
lieved that  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God;  even  He  that  cometh  unto  the  world." 
A  splendid  indication  of  Martha's  thought  of 
Jesus;  but  no  answer  to  His  question,  was 
it?    Poor,  sorrowing  woman!  how  could  she 
say,  under  the  limitations  of  the  knowledge 
which  she  possessed  at  that  moment,  that  she 
believed  what  Jesus  said?  Had  not  Lazarus, 
until  four  days  ago,  been  living?  Had  he  not 
believed  on  the  Master?  was  he  not  dead? 
And  why  did  he  die,  if  those  words  were 
true,  "whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  me 
shall  never  die"1   St.  John,  in  his  record  of 
this,  writes,  that  when  Martha  had  given  the 
reply  which  failed  to  answer  the  question  of 
Jesus,  "she  went  away,  and  called  Mary,  her 
sister,    secretly.^'    Is    it   an   unwarrantable 
thought  that  Martha  may  have  said  to  the 
quiet,  bereaved  Mary,  "The  Master  is  here, 
and  calleth  thee,  and  oh !  He  has  said  some- 
thing which,  as  yet,  I  cannot  understand"! 
Do  you  see  the  point,  my  Reader?  It  is  this; 
that  the  significance  and  the  truthfulness  of 
Christ's  words  were  not  realized,  at  the  time 
He  spoke  them,  by  poor  weeping  Martha; 
and  never  will  be  realized  by  any  other  poor 
weeping  soul,  until  the  mourner,  in  the  full 

68 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

light  of  Gospel  truth,  has  had  the  mental 
eyes  opened,  so  as  to  be  able  to  distinguish 
between  an  encasement  and  the  tenant  who 
temporarily  occupies  it;  between  a  perish- 
able earthly  ''tabernacle"  and  the  Self  who 
shall  never  die.  If  the  Self  be  dependent  for 
existence  upon  a  physical  organization,  and 
does  not  survive  separation  from  it,  then  are 
these  words  of  Jesus  not  true. 

I  pass  on  to  the  next  phase  of  the  subject. 
What  more  may  we  gather  concerning  our 
Self  after  death,  from  our  Lord's  teaching 
and  demonstration? 

11.  That,  after  death,  our  Self  is  not  a 
bodiless  entity. 

One  of  the  bitterest  ingredients  in  the  cup 
of  bereavement  is,  I  think,  to  have  no  idea, 
or  a  very  vague  one,  as  to  the  personality  of 
the  one  gone  hence.  Let  me  clearly  define 
what  I  mean  by  this  word  "Personality."  I 
do  not  mean  "Individuality."  The  terms 
must  not  be  confounded.  Our  individuality 
is  that  which  makes  us  absolutely  sure  that 
we  are  ourselves,  and  not  some  one,  or  some- 
thing else.  Our  personality  refers  to  the  ex- 
ternal appearance ;  the  form  in  which  our  in- 
dividuality manifests  and  expresses  itself. 

69 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

In  this  twentieth  century,  there  are,  com- 
paratively speaking,  very  few  persons  who 
know  anything  at  all  about  the  results  of  the 
scientific  investigation  of  Psychic  Phenom- 
ena, who  do  not  believe,  or  think  it  likely, 
that  our  Self,  as  an  individuality,  survives 
physical  death.    But  their  conception  of  the 
personality  of  this  surviving  individuality  is 
very  hazy.   Prove  it  for  yourself.   Ask  any- 
one who  has  "lost"  a  dear  one,  how  he  men- 
tally pictures  that  one  on  the  Other  Side. 
"Is  that  one  living,  as  a  being  conscious  of 
life?"    "Oh,  yes,"  will  be  the  reply.    "Is 
that  one  in  bodily  form— as  a  personality  V 
The  one  questioned  may  be  a  very  devout 
Christian,  but  the  answer  generally  given 
will  be  of  a  hesitating  and  uncertain  charac- 
ter.   I  speak  from  an  experience  of  many 
years.     You  will,  probably,  be  referred  to 
what  Church  Fathers  or  Founders  of  Schools 
of  Eeligious   Thought   said  on  this  matter 
centuries  ago ;  and  it  is  supposed  to  be  quite 
a  profane  idea  to  imagine  that,  perhaps,  we 
living  on  earth  to-day,  in  the  light  of  ad- 
vancing knowledge  of  the  Psychic,  may  know 
just  a  little  more  about  our  Self  and  our 
Hereafter  than  those  Fathers  and  Founders 
did.    And,  unfortunately,  not  all  those  old- 

70 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

time  exponents  of  Christian  verities  give  us 
a  satisfying  idea  of  what  we  shall  be  after 
death.  "VVe  ask  to  know  more  than  they  told 
us.  Their  conception  of  the  Self  after  death 
was  not  a  defined  one.  It  left  no  clear  per- 
ception of  a  personality.  All  the  assurances 
of  "beatific  visions"  do  not  meet  the  need  of 
the  bereaved  one  who  stands  in  the  room  of 
death,  or  by  an  open  grave.  Husband,  wife, 
parent,  son,  daughter,  friend — what  is  it,  in 
your  grief,  you  must  want  to  know  about  the 
erstwhile  Tenant  of  that  lifeless  form?  Is  it 
not  that  he,  or  she,  whom  you  knew  and  loved 
through  a  bodily  form,  is  more  than  a  sur- 
viving something,  more  than  a  bodiless  es- 
sence of  the  one  who  was ;  that  the  Self,  al- 
though the  physical  "tabernacle"  has  been 
vacated,  is  in  bodily  form  still?  AVhat  is  to 
be  gathered  from  the  Gospel  records  and 
the  other  writings  of  the  New  Testament 
concerning  this? 

Take  a  very  illuminative  statement  made 
by  St.  Paul  in  his  Epistle,  I  Corinthians  xv. 
In  answer  to  the  question,  "How  are  'the 
dead'  raised,  and  with  what  manner  of 
body  do  they  come?"  he  replies  "There  are 
celestial  bodies,  and  bodies  terrestrial  .  .  . 
There   is   a   natural  body,   and   there   is   a 

71 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

spiritual  body  .  .  .  Howbeit  that  is  not 
first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  nat- 
ural; then  that  which  is  spiritual.  The  first 
man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy;  the  second  man 
is  of  heaven.  Flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit 
the  Kingdom  of  God;  neither  doth  corrup- 
tion inherit  incorruption. " 

There  are  also  the  same  apostle's  words 
in  II  Corinthians  v.  1,  *'For  we  know  that 
if  the  earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  be 
dissolved,  we  have  a  huilding  from  God,  a 
house  not  made  with  hands,  oeonial  in  the 
heavens."  In  these  words,  St.  Paul  clearly 
states  several  very  important  facts :  (a)  That 
there  are  bodily  forms  other  than  physical 
bodies;  (b)  That  the  man  (the  Self),  in  this 
life,  is  the  possessor  of  tivo  bodies,  viz.  a 
natural  or  physical  body  and  a  spiritual  body. 
In  the  sentence  ' '  There  is  a  natural  body  and 
there  is  a  spiritual  body."  the  verb  in  the 
present  tense  (eatt)  is  repeated,  denoting  that 
the  spiritual  body  is  not  a  something  with 
which  the  Self  will  be  invested  on  some  far- 
off  day,  but  that  of  which  it  is  now  possessed. 
(laTt  aw^ia  ^ux'^^^>  "^-"-^  ^att  cwjxa  xveuii.aTtx($v). 
In  other  words,  St.  Paul's  statement  is  not 
"There  is  a  natural  body,  and  there  shall  he 
later  a  spiritual  body."    The  spiritual  body 

72 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

is  an  adjunct  of  the  Self,  even  while  the 
latter  is  an  occupant  of  the  physical  body. 
The  sold  of  a  person  is  not  a  bodiless  spirit; 
it  is  the  spirit  Self  in  a  spiritual  encasement 
— a  spiritual  body ;  whether  that  Self  be  in  a 
physical  body  or  out  of  it.  (c)  We  also  gath- 
er from  St.  Paul's  words  that  although  the 
first  manifestation  of  the  Self  is  through  the 
medium  of  a  physical  body,  its  manifestation 
is  not  limited  to  that  body.  The  surviving 
Self  is  not  bereft  of  the  power  of  manifes- 
tation because  the  physical  body  has  been 
discarded.  He  has  another  encasement — a 
spirit-body,  of  which  physical  dying  does  not 
rob  him.  His  second  phase  of  manifestation 
is  through  the  medium  of  this  spiritual  en- 
wrapment.  In  what  the  apostle  writes,  there 
is  not  the  glimmer  of  an  idea  that  the  Self 
at  death  passes  into  a  temporary  annihila- 
tion, or  a  condition  of  impaired  animation. 
He  is  referring  to  the  personality — the  em- 
bodiment of  the  Self;  to  a  body,  as  distant 
from  its  spirit-tenant.  Of  that  body  he 
states,  ''That  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual, 
but  that  which  is  natural ;  then  that  which  is 
spiritual."  Speaking  of  the  man  as  he  is 
manifested  on  the  physical  plane,  he  writes, 
"The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy"; 

73 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

speaking  of  the  man  detached  from  an  earth- 
ly body,  he  describes  him  as  "the  second 
man,  of  heaven";  i.  e.,  of  a  spiritual,  in  con- 
tradistinction   to    a    physical    environment. 
That  the  conception  of  St.  Paul  of  the  Self 
after  death  was  not  that  of  a  formless,  un- 
embodied  spirit  entity,  is  shown  by  his  dec- 
laration that  ''if  the  earthly  house  of  our 
tabernacle  be  dissolved,  ive  have   (not  one 
day  shall  have)  a  building  from  God,  a  house 
not    made    with    hands."     (d)    Lastly,    St. 
Paul's  words,  "Flesh  and  blood  cannot  in- 
herit the  Kingdom  of  God,  neither  doth  cor- 
ruption   inherit    incorruption,"    completely 
negative   the   idea  that  the  physical  body, 
which  was  used  by  the  spirit-Self  as  its  first 
medium  of  manifestation,  will  ever  be  taken 
up  again  as  a  vehicle  of  subsequent  mani- 
festation.   "W^at    is   the   condition   of  that 
physical  body  after  the  Self  has  left  it  at 
death?    Corruption.    And  what  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  spiritual  body,  which  St.  Paul 
calls  "a  building  from  God"?  Incorruption. 
The  belief  that  the  poor  corruptible  thing 
laid  in  a  grave  will  be  resuscitated  and  again 
become  the  medium  through  which  the  Self 
will  everlastingly  manifest  itself  is  not  in 

74 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

agreement  with  the  words,  ''Neither  doth 
corruption  inherit  incorruption." 

There  are  a  very  great  many  Christians 
who  believe  that,  although  the  future  encase- 
ment of  the  Self  will  not  be  jiesli  and  hlood, 
but  an  imperishable  spiritual  body,  yet  that 
spiritual  body  will  be  constituted  by  a  re- 
collection and  a  changing,  by  Divine  power, 
of  the  relics  placed  in  the  grave.  It  will  be, 
not  the  same  body,  in  nature  and  character, 
as  it  was ;  but  a  differently  constituted  body 
derived  from  the  body  which  died.  AYell,  this 
idea  is  not  quite  so  materialistic  as  the  other 
one  named;  but  it  still  leaves  corruption  as 
the  inheritor  of  incorruption.  In  that  case, 
the  apostle  was  still  wrong;  and  moreover, 
it  still  leaves  us,  in  dying  or  bereavement, 
with  the  comfort-blighting  thought  that 
from  the  moment  of  quitting  the  "earthly 
tabernacle"  until  some  distant  day,  the  poor, 
unclothed  Self  is  left  bodiless  and  imper- 
sonal. St.  Paul  evidently  did  not  like  this  idea 
of  bodilessness.  No  words  than  his,  could 
possibly  be  plainer  on  this  point;  only  Chris- 
tians, or  many  of  them,  have  come  to  read 
them  in  the  light  of  the  words  of  the  hymn — 

*'Soon  shall  come  the  great  aivakening, 
Soon  the  rending  of  the  tomb.'' 
75 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

But  read  his  words  in  the  light  of  a  fuller 
understanding  of  spiritual  realities,  and  how 
luminous  they  become:  ''For,  verily,  in  this 
earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  (R.  V.  or 
bodily  frame)  we  groan,  longing  to  be  clothed 
upon  with  our  habitation  which  is  from 
heaven;  if  so  be  that  being  clothed  we  shall 
not  be  found  naked.  For,  indeed,  we  that 
are  in  this  tabernacle  do  groan,  being  bur- 
dened; not  that  we  would  be  unclothed,  but 
that  we  would  be  clothed  upon,  that  what  is 
mortal  may  be  swallowed  up  of  life"  (II 
Cor.  V.  2  to  4).  One  or  two  difficulties  pre- 
sent themselves  to  some  in  realising  this 
truth  concerning  the  Self  when  dissociated 
from  the  earthly  body.  Probably,  the  first 
of  these  is  the  words  in  the  Apostles'  Creed: 
"I  believe  in  .  .  .  the  resurrection  of  the 
body."  The  Reformers,  in  placing  an  in- 
terrogatory form  of  this  Creed  in  the  Bap- 
tismal Service  of  our  Prayer-book,  took  the 
liberty  of  altering  the  clause:  "the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body''  to  "the  resurrection  of  the 
flesh.^^  Their  intent,  no  doubt,  was  good. 
They  wanted  posterity  to  clearly  understand 
what  was  their  interpretation  of  this  particu- 
lar clause.  It  never  dawned  upon  them  that 
as  the  human  race  advanced  to  fuller  knowl- 

76 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

edge  of  things  relating  to  the  spiritual,  the 
time-worn  words  of  the  Christian  Church, 
from  the  Apostolic  age  to  now,  might  bear 
a  fuller  significance  than  they  had  supposed. 
But  what  if  many  hundreds  of  Christians  of 
these  days  know  more  about  Psychic  and 
other  scientific  matters  than  these  good  old 
teachers  of  the  past  did!  Are  we  bound  to 
accept  as  final  their  interpretations?  I  think 
not.  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  were  firmly 
convinced  that  our  earth  is  the  central  point 
of  the  solar  system,  and  that  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  departed  is  under  the  surface  of 
this  globe.  They  were  wrong;  and  there  is 
not  an  educated  person  of  this  time  who 
would  challenge  this  assertion.  All  I  wish  to 
point  out  is  this — that  it  is  fatal  to  any 
chance  of  our  obtaining  fuller  light  on  any 
subject,  religious  or  otherwise,  if  we  handi- 
cap ourselves  by  attaching  finality  as  to  truth 
to  what  may  have  been  thought  and  taught 
by  men  who  lived  in  ages  of  lesser  knowl- 
edge. What  if  we  know  that  the  Greek  word 
**Anastasis"  is  but  poorly  translated  by  the 
materialistic,  Roman  word  ''Resurrection"? 
What  if  we  believe  that  the  word  "body"  in 
the  ancient  Creed,  may  stand  for  something 
very  much  more  spiritual  that  Latin  Chris- 

77 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

tianity  thought ;  that  it  may  be  taken  to  mean 
not  the  corruptible  thing  deposited  in  the 
grave,  but  the  spiritual  body  of  which  St. 
Paul  wrote?  In  that  case,  this  clause  of  the 
Creed  bears  a  far  greater  significance  to  us. 
In  the  light  of  amplified  knowledge,  "I  be- 
lieve in  the  resurrection  of  the  body"  may 
mean  something  essentially  different  from 
the  materialistic  conception  of  Latin  Chris- 
tendom, and  something  more  approaching 
the  idea  of  the  early  Eastern  Christian 
Church.  Those  words  of  the  Creed  can  voice 
our  belief,  not  that,  at  some  future  day,  mor- 
tal remains,  collected  together,  and  changed 
and  immortalised  by  Divine  power,  will  be- 
come again  the  "tabernacle"  of  the  Self;  but 
that  at  physical  dying  there  is  an  Anastasis, 
an  advancement,  an  emergence  into  fuller  be- 
ing of  the  pre-existing  spiritual  body  of  the 
Self.  There  are  some  persons  who  suppose 
that  the  spiritual-body  of  the  Self  does  not 
come  into  existence  until  the  earthly  body 
has  been  laid  aside.  That  is  not  right.  As  an 
undeveloped,  or  partially  developed,  thing, 
the  spiritual  body  has  been  the  encasement 
of  the  Self  all  the  time  the  Self  has  been 
living  within  the  flesh.  As  in  the  case  of  a 
nut,  so  in  the  case  of  a  man;  beneath  the 

78 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

husk  which  super-encases  the  kernel,  lies  an- 
other encasement  of  the  latter.  The  sever- 
ance of  the  spiritual  body  from  the  outer, 
coarser  body  only  opens  out  the  possibility 
of  the  expansion  of  the  former,  and  its  ac- 
quirement of  greater  powers  and  fuller  life. 
Encased  in  the  physical  body,  the  powers  of 
the  spirit-body  are  restricted,  and  in  some 
cases  inoperative.  Detachment  from  the  phys- 
ical body  means  the  removal  of  curtailment, 
and  enhancement  for  the  spirit-body.  There 
happens,  at  physical  dying,  to  the  spiritual 
body  of  the  Self,  that  which  corresponds  with 
what  happens  to  the  child  at  physical  birth. 
In  both  cases,  there  is  a  pre-existent  body, 
each  with  its  unopened  faculties.  The  inci- 
dent of  birth  removes  a  physical  body  from 
its  previous  environment,  brings  into  play  its 
latent  faculties  and  launches  it  into  more 
abundant  life.  The  incident  of  physical  dy- 
ing does  precisely  the  same  thing  with  re- 
gard to  the  pre-existent  spiritual  body  of  the 
Self. 

Take  a  still  more  striking  illustration — the 
birth  of  a  dragon-fly.  You  see  what  looks  like 
a  dried,  twig-like  something,  suspended  from 
a  branch  over-hanging  the  stream.  That  is  a 
little  creature  which  has   passed  the   first 

79 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

stage  of  its  life  in  the  water,  and  has  crawled 
out  of  it  to  moult  on  that  branch,  before  be- 
taking itself  to  aerial  life.  Watch  it.  Pres- 
ently there  is  a  bursting  of  the  twig-like 
thing,  and  there  emerges  from  it  a  creature 
which  is  quickly  developed  into  a  form  of 
lovely  colour  and  gauzy  wings.  The  emer- 
gence of  the  Self  in  its  enwrapping  spirit- 
body  from  the  dying  physical  encasement, 
and  the  speedy  opening  out  and  expansion  of 
the  powers  and  faculties  of  the  spirit-body 
at  that  time,  is  no  more  a  cause  for  wonder 
than  the  birth  of  a  dragon-fly.  It  may  startle 
some  to  learn  that  there  are  many  living  to- 
day who  have  borne  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  they,  with  the  perceptive  powers  of  their 
own  interior  spirit-body  quickened,  have  ac- 
tually witnessed  the  emergence  of  the  spirit- 
body,  as  the  physical  body  has  been  dying.  I 
know  of  a  lady,  who,  for  years,  as  a  hospital 
nurse,  constantly  had  this  experience. 

We  turn  now  to  another  difficulty  which  is 
experienced  by  some  who  would  assuredly 
find  comfort  in  the  truth  that  the  spiritual 
body  of  the  Self  is  advanced  at  death.  It 
arises  from  St.  Paul's  words  in  I  Cor.  xv. 
42-44.  "It  is  sown  in  corruption;  it  is  raised 
in  incorruption :  it  is  sown  in  dishonour;  it 

80 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

is  raised  in  glory :  it  is  sown  in  weakness ;  it 
is  raised  in  power :  it  is  sown  a  natural  body ; 
it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body.  There  is  a  nat- 
ural body,  there  is  also  a  spiritual  body." 
*'To  what,"  it  is  asked,  ''is  the  Apostle  re- 
ferring by  the  oft-repeated  word,  ''It"?  To 
a  body,  undoubtedly.  And  the  "It"  sown  is 
the  "It"  raised?  And  the  Greek  word  %eipm 
— (speiro)  means,  to  sow  seed?  Yes;  and  on 
this  the  assumption  has  been  built  that  his 
words  can  only  refer  to  the  placing  of  a  dead 
body  in  the  ground,  as  the  seed  from  which 
an  imperishable  body  is  one  day  to  spring 
forth.  In  which  case,  in  the  interval  between 
sowing  and  raising,  the  Self  remains  as  bodi- 
less ;  and  St.  Paul  was  wrong  in  stating  that 
"if  the  earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  be 
dissolved,  we  have  a  building  from  God — a 
house  not  made  with  hands."  But  is  this 
commonly  received  interpretation  of  the  pas- 
sage the  right  one?  I  think  not.  The  word 
speiro  has  another  signification  than  that  of 
casting  seed  into  the  ground.  It  also  means 
to  engender,  to  beget  cliildren;  and  in  this 
latter  sense  it  is  used  very  very  frequently 
in  the  Bible.  I  know  of  no  instance  in  which 
speiro  is  used  to  describe  the  act  of  burying 
a  dead  body.   The  sowing  is  the  sowing  of  a 

81 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

something  living.  It  is  the  life  in  the  sown 
seed,  which  constitutes  the  promise  and  po- 
tency of  what  shall  be.  Again,  to  which  body 
was  St.  Paul  referring?  He  speaks  of  two;  a 
natural  and  a  spiritual  body.  What  if  he 
were  not  thinking  at  all  about  a  physical 
body,  but  of  a  spiritual  body?  Not  about  the 
sowing  of  lifeless  materiality  in  the  ground, 
but  of  a  sowing  of  a  spiritual  body  within  the 
''tabernacle"  of  the  flesh;  which  flesh  should 
be,  for  a  w^hile,  the  vehicle  of  the  Self's  first 
manifestation?  In  other  words — what  if  the 
sowing  of  the  spiritual-body  is  the  moment 
of  conception ;  that  then,  when  the  Self  comes 
into  existence,  the  spiritual-body,  the  insep- 
arable enwrapment  of  that  Self  comes  into 
existence,  too  ?  Such  an  interpretation  makes 
the  Apostle's  words  very  luminous,  coherent, 
and  consistent  with  the  other  statements  he 
made.  How  understandable,  reasonable,  and 
concordant  with  science  is  the  belief  that  the 
spiritual  body  sown  in  the  "corruption," 
"dishonour,"  "weakness"  and  environment 
of  "a  natural  body,"  can  only  become  the 
'' raised"  thing  of  "incorruption,"  "glory," 
"power"  and  a  developed  "spiritual  body," 
when,  like  the  life-principle  in  the  seed,  it 
bursts  forth  from  the  encasement  in  which  it 

82 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

was  engendered,  and  leaves  that  encasement 
to  desuetude  and  decay!  The  reader  must 
not  think  that  this  interpretation  of  St. 
Paul's  words  is  a  new  one.  It  was  held  by- 
no  less  a  church  authority  than  Athanasius. 
In  Eespons.  ad  Quoest.  xvi.  he  writes,  ''But 
just  as  when  stone  and  steel  are  struck  to- 
gether fire  is  engendered  of  both,  just  so 
upon  the  embrace  of  man  and  woman  God 
orders  body  and  soul  to  co-exist.  Let  the 
holy  apostle  persuade  thee  of  this  when  he 
says,  'It  is  sown  a  natural  body;  it  is  raised 
a  spiritual  body.'  "  Basil  of  Csesarea  makes 
a  similar  statement;  the  only  difference  be- 
ing that  he  makes  the  sowing  of  the  spiritual 
body  to  be  at  the  time  of  birth,  and  not  at 
the  moment  of  conception.  There  are  the 
statements  of  several  other  church  Fathers, 
which  I  have  not  space  to  quote. 

We  turn  now  to  the  Gospel  records,  which 
illustrate  what  St.  Paul  wrote  about  the  spir- 
itual body,  and  which  bear  witness  that  the 
Self  after  death  is  not  a  bodiless  entity. 

First,  there  is  the  incident  connected  with 
the  Transfiguration.  It  is  described  by  St. 
Matthew,  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.  On  one  oc- 
casion, our  Lord,  taking  with  Him  Peter, 
James  and  John,  brought  them  up  into  a  high 

83 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

mountain  (probably  Mount  Hermon),  apart 
from  the  other  disciples.    We  are  not  told 
why  those  three  particular  men  were  chosen. 
It  may  have  been  that  they  only  of  all  the 
twelve  had  their  psychic  powers  sufficiently 
developed  to  be  able  to  perceive  the  spiritual 
realities   which   were    to    be    demonstrated. 
Christ  was  transfigured  before  them.    His 
countenance  was  altered,  His  face  shone  as 
the  sun,  and  His  garments  became  white  as 
the  light.    His  spirit-body,  although  as  yet 
undetached  from  the  physical,  was  gleaming 
through  the  walls  of  the  flesh.    Amid  the 
grandeur  and  solemnity  of  the  scene  *' there 
appeared  and  talked  with  Him  hvo  men" — 
Moses  and  Elijah.    Both  of  them,  centuries 
before,  had  left  this  earthly  life.    The  dead 
body  of  Moses  had  been  buried  in  Moab,  over 
against  Bethpeor.    Elijah  had  mysteriously 
passed  into  spirit-life.   But  there  they  were 
on  that  mountain  with  Jesus  and  those  three 
disciples;  certainly  not  as  bodiless  spirits. 
They  were  in  bodily  form,  as  every  spirit  in 
this  or  any  other  world  is.    St.  Luke  describes 
them  as  ''two  men."  Their  form  must  have 
been  such  as  to  justify  this  description.    St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  expressly  state  that 
they  were  seen  by  the  three  apostles.   They 

84 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

heard  these  two  visitants  from  the  Other 
World  speak,  and  the  subject  of  their  con- 
versation with  Jesus  is  mentioned ;  and  they 
were  so  real  and  man-like  that  Peter  pro- 
posed that  tabernacles  should  be  made  for 
them.  Those  three  men  in  the  flesh  were  con- 
vinced that  they  were  not  in  the  presence  of 
two  unclothed  bodiless  Selves ;  and  it  was  be- 
cause of  this,  and  because  this  manifestation 
taught  them  something  which  their  creed  had 
never  taught  them  and  dispersed  their  dim, 
hazy  notions  of  what  we  are  after  death,  that 
Peter  said,  "Lord,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be 
here!"  We  ask  in  the  case  of  Moses,  in  what 
body  was  he  on  that  mount?  Certainly  not 
in  his  physical  body;  for  that  had  died  and 
been  buried  centuries  before,  and  there  had 
been  no  Resurrection  Day.  There  is  but  one 
answer,  viz.  that  both  he  and  Elijah  on  that 
mountain  were  encased  in  the  spirit-body  of 
the  Self. 

We  consider  now  a  statement  made  by  St. 
Matthew,  in  Matt,  xxvii.  51  to  53.  He  re- 
counts that  at  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord  the 
veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain,  and 
that  there  was  an  earthquake  which  rent  the 
rocks,  and  burst  open  the  tombs  or  monu- 
ments     (ti.vT]ii.eta)  of  the  departed.    He  then 

85 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

adds — ' '  and  many  bodies  of  the  saints  which 
had  fallen  asleep  were  aroused  (iiykg^)  ',  and 
coiming  forth  out  of  the  tombs  after  Christ's 
raising  (eyepatv) ,  they  entered  into  the  holy 
city,  and  appeared  into  many."  Now  what 
are  we  to  understand  by  these  words  of  the 
evangelist?  Are  we  to  take  them  in  every 
respect  in  a  strictly  literal  sense;  or  are  we 
to  take  them  as  the  record  of  an  event,  de- 
scribed in  the  mode  of  speaking  common  in 
his  day?  If,  as  some  say,  the  statement 
should  be  taken  literally,  then  we  are  faced 
at  once  with  several  difficulties.  If  the 
scholar  will  look  at  the  Greek  text,  he  will 
see  that  the  word  *' bodies"  is  neuter.  Now, 
St.  Matthew,  in  the  after  part  of  the  sen- 
tence, instead  of  making  the  verbs  agree  with 
the  neuter  (bodies),  changes  into  the  mascu- 
line, and  states — "They  (i.  e.,  the  saints  who 
had  fallen  asleep ;  and  not  merely  their  dead 
bodies,  or  what  was  left  of  them)  having 
come  forth  out  of  the  tombs,  entered  into  the 
holy  city."  Are  we  to  suppose  that  from  the 
date  of  their  physical  dying  until  that  Eas- 
ter-time those  saints  had  just  been  sleeping 
in  those  tombs;  so  that  the  latter  were  not 
only  the  receptacles  for  the  dead  bodies,  but 
also  for  sleeping  Selves?  or,  that  those  ones 

86 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

sleeping  elsewhere,  had  betaken  themselves, 
or   been   taken,   back   to   the   charnel-house 
where  long  ago  their  disused  garment  of  the 
flesh  had  been  consigned  to  corruption?   The 
idea  is  an  unthinkable  one,  if  Gospel  tmth  is 
to  take  away  "the  sting  of  death."    And  yet 
we  are  committed  to  it,  if  to  the  words  of 
St.  Matthew  a  strictly  literal  interpretation 
be  given.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  any  dif- 
ficulty should  be  found  in  this  passage.   The 
apostle  was  recording  an  event  which  actual- 
ly took  place.    That  event  was  that,  at  the 
time  when  the  Saviour  left  the  earth-life  and 
returned  to  spirit-life,  a  number  of  departed 
ones  who  were  accounted  dead  appeared  as 
living  beings  "unto  many"  in  the  City  of 
Jerusalem.   His  return  to  spirit-life,  as  also 
His  coming  from  spirit-life  to  earth-life,  ap- 
peared to  give  an  opening-up  of  inter-com- 
munication between  the  spiritual  world  and 
this  world.    Before  Jesus'  birth,  an  exalted 
spiritual  visitant  manifested  himself  here  on 
earth.    Immediately  after  His  birth,  crowds 
of  such  visitants  did   so.    Throughout   our 
Lord's    earthly    ministry    spiritual    beings 
were  constantly  present.   After  His  crucifix- 
ion, men  and  women  saw  and  heard  them; 
and  the   departed   ones,   of  whom   we   are 

87 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

speaking,  were  peraiitted  to  reveal  them- 
selves, after  bodily  destruction,  as  living 
selves,  to  those  in  this  life.  The  coming  of 
Christ  to  this  "sorrowful  planet"  seemed  to 
bridge  the  gulf  between  the  two  worlds.  Be- 
fore He  came,  as  far  as  we  know,  there  had 
been,  for  centuries,  a  closing  down  of  the  in- 
ter-communication between  this  world  and 
the  other.  When  Jesus  was  in  earthly  form 
among  men  the  ideas  of  the  Jews  were  very 
materialistic.  The  truth  about  the  Self  after 
death  was  not  known,  or  but  very  inade- 
quately known.  Even  a  beloved  friend  of 
Him — Martha — could  hold  no  better  hope 
concerning  a  physically  dead  brother  than 
that  at  some  distant  period  he  would  be 
brought  to  life  again.  An  influential  religious 
community  of  His  time  (the  Sadducees),  had 
no  belief  in  after-life.  Their  less  materialis- 
tic rivals,  the  Pharisees,  could  not  conceive 
of  the  man  except  in  conjunction  with  an 
earthly  body,  and  had  no  belief  in  any  after- 
life for  him  apart  from  a  resuscitated  dead 
physical  organisation.  Now  consider  the  po- 
sition of  St.  Matthew.  He  was  a  Jew,  and 
wanted  to  tell  his  countrymen  the  fact  that 
persons,  regarded  only  as  dead  and  buried, 
were  living  and  had  "appeared  unto  many." 

88 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

If  he  had  referred  to  them  as  the  "depart- 
ed," that  term,  although  expressing  so  much 
to  us  who  live  in  the  light  of  Christian  reve- 
lation, would  have  conveyed  little  or  nothing 
to  them.    "Defunct"  is  the  term  which  ex- 
pressed their  ideas.  Had  not  their  leaders  of 
religious  thought  said  to  Jesus,  "Abraham 
is  dead,  and  the  prophets"?    The  evangelist 
had  to  come  down  to  their  level  of  thought 
and  speech  to  make  them  understand  that 
those  whom  they  called  the  "Dead,"  those 
whom  they  supposed  to  be  in  the  tombs,  had 
"appeared  unto  many."  He  did  exactly  what 
we  constantly  do,  and  "what  Christ  had  to  do, 
as  I  have  already  instanced  in  a  foregoing 
page.  When,  in  His  parable  of  the  Rich  Man 
and  Lazarus,  Jesus   represented   Dives   as 
asking  that  the  living  Lazarus  in  Hades  be 
sent  to  warn  the  brethren  still  in  the  flesh,  the 
Master  added,  "Nteither  will  they  be  per- 
suaded if  one  rise  from  the  dead."  In  going 
to  those  brethren  it  was  no  case  of  a  rising 
from  the  dead ;  the  one  asked  to  be  sent  was 
living;  and  yet  Jesus  to  make  the  meaning 
clear  had  to  adopt  the  inaccuracy  of  common 
thought  and  speech.    If  Christians  would  but 
bear  this  in  mind,  many  of  the  seeming  con- 
tradictions in  the  Sacred  Text  would  disap- 

89 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

pear,  and  a  fuller  perception  of  trntli  would 
be  reached.  What,  then,  is  the  point  in  con- 
sidering this  particular  Gospel  record?  This, 
that  those  departed  ones  at  that  long-ago 
Easter-time,  when  as  living  Selves  they  "ap- 
peared unto  many,"  were  not  bodiless  enti- 
ties. They  were  seen,  and  some  of  them,  per- 
haps, recognised. 

This  event  narrated  by  St.  Matthew  must 
not  be  viewed  as  a  unique  happening  in  the 
history  of  the  human  race.  Long  before  those 
departed  ones  appeared  to  many  in  Jerusa- 
lem, persons  whose  physical  bodies  were  dead 
had  appeared  and  been  recognised  by  dwell- 
ers on  earth.  The  prophet  Sa;muel,  after  his 
decease,  manifested  himself  to  the  woman  of 
Endor.  In  Rev.  xix.  10  it  is  stated  that  St. 
John  fell  down  to  worship  a  spiritual  visitant 
whom  he  did  not  recognise  as  being  a  discar- 
nate  human  being.  ' '  See  thou  do  it  not, ' '  said 
that  one  to  the  aged  and  sorrowing  apostle, 
"I  am  a  felloiv  servant  ivitli  thee  and  with 
thy  brethren."  One  who  had  laboured  with 
him  for  Christ,  and  had  passed  hence,  prob- 
ably by  martyrdom,  was  permitted  to  come 
and  cheer  the  old  veteran  of  the  cross  in  his 
exile  and  loneliness;  and  it  was  no  bodiless 
entity  whom  St.  John  saw.   But  it  is  outside 

90 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  records  of  the  Bible  that  the  overwhelm- 
ing mass  of  testimony  is  forthcoming,  as  to 
appearances  after  death;  and  in  regard  to 
this,  I  note  this  fact — that  these  nmnerous 
manifestations  of  spiritual  beings — whether 
they  be  the  angels  who  figure  so  largely  in 
the  pages  of  Scripture,  or  those  who  have 
lived  in  the  flesh  and  died — have  all  been 
manifestations  in  bodily  form. 

We  come  now  to  what  was  actually  demon- 
strated by  Christ,  as  to  the  Self  being  in 
bodily  form  when  detached  from  the  physical 
body.  In  the  Gospel  records  concerning  the 
manifestations  of  Jesus,  during  the  forty 
days  of  the  first  Eastertide,  I  believe  we 
have  a  revealment  of  how  we  may  think  of 
ourselves,  when  physical  death  has  effected 
a  certain  change  in  the  outwardness,  but  not 
in  the  inwardness  of  the  Self;  a  change  in 
the  mode  of  Self  manifestation — the  Person- 
ality, but  not  in  the  Ego — the  Individuality. 
To  some  it  may  be  a  new  and  startling 
thought,  that  ones  departed  this  life  should, 
inmiediately  after  physically  dying,  find 
themselves  under  the  same  conditions  of  con- 
tinued life  as  Jesus  found  Himself  at  that 
first  Eastertide.  But  I  believe  that  it  is  only 
as  this  thought  is  gripped,  we  shall  gauge 

91 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  true  and  full  significance  to  us  of  the 
Christ  of  Easter.  Consider  the  facts  con- 
cerning Him  at  that  time.  Within  three  days 
of  physically  dying  on  the  cross,  Jesus  mani- 
fested Himself  in  a  bodily  Form,  which  cer- 
tainly, was  not  conditioned  and  restricted  by 
the  laws  that  govern  material  organizations. 
In  that  Form,  for  a  period  of  about  six 
weeks,  He  was  seen  on  different  occasions, 
both  individually  and  collectively,  by  certain 
men  and  women,  and  by  a  company  of  five 
hundred  brethren  at  the  same  time.  At  the 
close  of  that  period,  those  frequent  manifes- 
tations of  Jesus  ceased ;  and  afterwards.  He 
was  only  rarely  seen,  and  then,  in  a  bodily 
presentment  of  Himself  different  from  that 
in  which  He  appeared  during  the  forty  days. 
In  that  latter  presentment.  He  was  seen  by 
St.  Stephen,  St.  Paul,  and  St.  John;  as  far 
as  Biblical  testimony  goes.  But  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  there  have  been  no 
manifestations  of  our  Lord  subsequent  to 
these  last-mentioned  ones.  Many  testimonies 
during  the  centuries  have  been  given  as  to 
Christ  having  been  seen.  My  mother  con- 
stantly avouched  that  on  one  occasion  she 
had  seen  the  Saviour;  and  once  when  I  was 
lecturing  in  London,  a  young  man  in  the 

92 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

midst  of  the  large  audience,  calmly  declared 
that,  at  a  critical  point  of  his  career,  Christ 
had  manifested  Himself  and  spoken  to  him. 
Why  not?  Why  should  some  Christians  dis- 
credit testimonies  such  as  these,  and  that  the 
great  ''White  Comrade"  has  been  seen  on 
the  battle-fields  by  brave,  self-sacrificing 
men,  and  yet  unquestioningly  accept  as  truth 
the  Biblical  statements  as  to  similar  experi- 
ences ? 

It  is  concerning  the  nature  of  that  bodily 
Form  in  which  Jesus  appeared  during  those 
forty  days,  and  afterwards,  we  must  deal. 
Was  it  wholly  and  essentially  different  from 
the  bodily  form  in  which  we  as  living  Selves 
are  encased  after  death?  And,  again,  was 
Jesus,  in  those  Eastertide  manifestations,  in 
a  physical  encasement?  Suppose  we  say  that 
the  bodily  Form  of  Jesus  at  Easter  was  es- 
sentially different  from  the  enwrapment  of 
our  spirit  when  detached  from  the  earthly 
body.  Such  a  view  will  materially  affect  our 
idea  of  the  position  in  which  Jesus  stands  in 
relationship  to  us,  as  closely  and  vitally  al- 
lied to  us  in  human  nature  and  experiences. 
His  representation  of  Himself,  and  the  apos- 
tolic representations  of  Him  in  this  respect, 
are  very  clear  and  emphatic.  When  the  glori- 

93 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ous  Spirit-Son  of  the  Eternal  Father  became 
incarnate  in  a  human  Personality  He  became 
tiiily  and  really  Man.  He  assumed  the  all 
of  man's  experiences — his  life,  death,  and 
after-death  conditions.  Surely,  Jesus  Him- 
self affirmed  this,  in  His  constant  description 
of  Himself  as  "the  Son  of  Man.''  St.  Paul's 
words  on  this  point  are  significant.  In  Ro- 
mans vi.  5  he  writes : ' '  For  if  we  have  become 
united  with  Him  with  the  likeness  of  His 
death  we  shall  be  also  with  the  likeness  of 
His  anastasis."  The  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  (chap.  ii.  17)  expresses  the 
same  thought.  "It  behooved  Him  in  all 
things  ^0  he  made  like  unto  His  brethren." 
Are  these  statements  time?  Is  there  a  like- 
ness between  the  human  experiences  of  the 
great  "Son  of  Man"  and  those  of  us  lesser 
sons  and  daughters  of  men? 

Now,  if  we  say,  as  a  good  many  devout 
Christians  do,  that  the  experiences  of  Jesus, 
after  His  crucifixion,  were  wholly  dissimilar 
from  any  experiences  which  those  departed 
this  life  can  possibly  have,  we  have  to  explain 
away,  somehow  or  another,  Jesus'  words  and 
those  who  wrote  of  Him.  Take  the  gospel 
facts.  His  earthly  Body  died  on  a  cross.  His 
Self  did  not  die.    That  is  quite  clear :  as  on 

94 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  cross  He  said  He  would  be  that  same  day 
with  a  repentant  robber  in  the  spirit-world. 
Shortly  afterwards,  in  a  bodily  Form,  He 
tmanifested  Himself  to  friends.  Are  we,  after 
the  incident  of  death,  in  bodily  form  as  He 
was?  Is  any  after-death  manifestation  of 
ourself  a  possibility,  as  it  was  to  Him"? 

We  have  to  remember  that  there  are  thou- 
sands now  living,  including  men  in  the  fore- 
rank  of  science,  who  answer  these  questions 
in  the  affirmative.  They  will  tell  us  that, 
after  careful  investigation,  they  have  re- 
ceived absolute  proof  of  some  of  the  possi- 
bilities concerning  the  Self  after  death ;  that 
their  assertions  are  not  based  on  the  mere 
acceptance  of  a  belief,  but  on  demonstrated 
and  personally  experienced  facts.  There  is 
no  fact  so  universally  and  persistently  at- 
tested as  that  the  departed  have  been  seen  in 
bodily  form  and  recognised.  But  the  ordi- 
nary Christian,  in  spite  of  his  belief  in  the 
Bible,  does  not  realise  it.  If  you  were  to  ask 
him  if  he  thought  it  was  true  that  Peter, 
James  and  John  really  saw  departed  Moses 
on  the  mount  of  Transfiguration,  he  would 
answer,  "Yes,  yes,  of  course;  it  says  so  in  the 
Gospels."  And  then,  if  you  were  to  go  on  to 
tell  him  that  you  yourself  had  seen  a  depart- 

95 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ed  one,  and  that  you  know  scores  of  persons 
who  had  had  a  similar  experience — you  know 
what  would  happen.  Your  friend  would  put 
on  a  smile  and  a  "superior"  kind  of  look, 
and  would  tell  the  next  friend  he  met  that  he 
thought  you  were  not  quite  right  in  the  head. 
He  would  consider  himself  a  "heretic"  if  he 
did  not  believe  that  such  things  took  place 
in  Bible-times ;  but  he  could  not  possibly  be- 
lieve that  they  have  ever  happened  since.  It 
never  strikes  him  how  inconsistent  it  is  for 
him  to  say,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  "As  it  was 
in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be." 
Ask  such  a  one  the  above-mentioned  ques- 
tions. The  answer  will  be,  "No;  certainly 
not  until  a  future  Resurrection  Day. ' ' 

Well!  the  answer  is  wrong;  and  I  will  tell 
you  why  it  is  so.  If  it  were  right,  it  would 
mean  that  there  is  a  tremendous  gulf  of  dif- 
ference between  the  manhood  of  Jesus  and 
our  manhood.  The  nature  of  the  two  man- 
hoods would  be  unlike.  What  befell  Him  as 
a  Man  would  not  be  what  befalls  us.  In  that 
case,  there  would  be  union  between  Him  and 
us,  in  point  of  human  likeness,  just  as  far  as 
the  act  of  physical  dying ;  but  there  it  would 
stop.  The  human  Self  of  Jesus  after  death 
would  have  been  unlike  what  our  Selves  are 

96 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

then.  And  so  the  words  would  not  be  true — 
that  Jesus  "in  all  things  was  made  like  unto 
His  brethren." 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  believe 
that  Jesus,  as  truly  "the  Son  of  Man," 
stands  to  us  as  the  grand  revelation  and 
pledge  of  what  will  be  the  condition  of  our 
Self  when  the  physical  has  been  cast  aside, 
then,  I  think,  and  only  then,  will  dying  be 
divested  of  its  suggestion  of  blankness  and 
gloom. 

We  turn  now  to  the  other  question  which 
was  asked.  Was  Jesus,  in  His  manifestations 
at  Easter-time,  in  a  physical  bodyf  What  is 
the  answer  we  may  gather  from  the  Gospel 
records?  The  testimony  borne  by  the  evan- 
gelists is,  that  the  bodily  Form  in  which  our 
Lord  presented  Himself  to  a  number  of  per- 
sons on  various  occasions,  between  Good-Fri- 
day and  Ascension,  was  such  as  to  preclude 
the  idea  that  that  Form  was  a  physical  one. 
In  nature  and  possibilities  it  differed  essen- 
tially from  the  Body  which  died  on  the  cross. 
It  was  a  Body  the  appearance  of  which  to 
others  could  be  altered  at  vnll.  St.  Mark 
mentions  this  fact.  "He  was  manifested  in 
another  form.''  (Mark  xvi.  12).  Jesus  did 
not  present  Himself,  in  outward  appearance 

97 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

to  Mary  Magdalene,  who  supposed  Him  to  be 
the  gardener,  in  the  same  way  as  He  pre- 
sented Himself  to  the  women  returning  from 
the  sepulchre,  who  immediately  recognised 
Him.  Nor  was  He,  in  appearance,  the  same 
to  the  two  men  journeying  to  Emmaus,  who 
mistook  Him  for  a  stranger,  as  He  was  when 
later  they  recognised  Him  in  the  breaking  of 
bread;  or  as  He  was  to  the  ten  apostles  in 
an  upper-room  on  the  same  evening.  Nor, 
when  a  week  later.  He  showed  Himself  to  in- 
credulous Thomas,  with  the  marks  of  nail- 
wounds  in  His  hands,  was  He  outwardly  like 
the  One  who  appeared  to  the  eleven  disciples 
on  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  when  they  ''saw 
Him  and  worshipped;  hut  some  doubted." 
Again,  when  the  Master  met  some  of  His 
disciples  in  the  early  morning  on  the  beach 
of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  there  must  have  been 
some  difference  in  His  appearance  from  their 
sight  of  Him  in  the  upper-room,  or  St.  John 
would  scarcely  have  written,  "None  of  the 
disciples  durst  enquire  of  Him,  Who  art 
Thou?"  although  they  felt  it  was  Jesus. 
Now,  these  changes  in  the  appearance  of 
Jesus'  Body — causing  Him  to  bear  in  turn 
the  semblance  of  a  gardener,  a  stranger,  a 
crucified  one,  a  person   readily  recognised, 

98 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

and  one  not  easily  identified — exclude  the 
idea  that  the  Body  which  underwent  these 
changes  was  a  physical  one.  But  this  fact  of 
change  in  appearance  is  not  incompatible 
with  the  thought  of  a  spiritual  body. 
Throughout  the  Bible  we  have  the  accounts 
of  angels  who  visited  men.  They  were  spirit- 
ual beings,  not  encased  in  physical  organiza- 
tions ;  and  yet  they  were  seen  as  being  in  ap- 
pearance like  men;  and  indeed  the  term 
"men"  is  constantly  applied  to  them.  In  the 
innumerable  instances  of  persons  seen  after 
death,  they  have  borne  the  form  and  even  the 
characteristics  of  dress  by  which  they  had 
been  known  before  departure  from  this  life. 
How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for?  As  beings 
of  another  world,  they  are  not  possessed  of 
a  physical,  but  a  spiritual  body;  how,  then, 
can  the  Self  so  present  itself  as  to  cause  the 
spiritual  body  to  bear  the  semblance  of  the 
physical?  For  instance,  a  distinguished 
judge,  lately  passed  over,  told  me  when  sit- 
ting with  him  in  the  retiring-room  of  the 
Winchester  Assize  Court,  that  he  had  seen, 
and  heard  the  voice,  of  a  beloved  daughter 
who  had  died  some  time  before.  I  asked  in 
what  form  she  appeared.  The  justice  replied, 
"She  was  exactly  as  she  was  before  her  ill- 

99 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ness;  and  dressed  as  I  have  often  seen  her 
dressed. ' '  I  asked  if  she  had  spoken  to  him. 
"Yes,"  he  answered,  '*I  was  going  through 
notes  of  evidence  and  depositions  in  view  to 
my  summing-up  of  a  case;  and  there  she 
stood  in  my  room  at  the  judge's  lodgings. 
She  smiled  at  me,  and  said,  'Father,  you  are 
quite  wrong.  You  think  of  me  as  dead ;  but 
I  was  never  so  much  alive  as  I  am  now; 
though  your  grief  hurts  me  terribly?'  And 
then  she  vanished."  ''Now,  Mr.  Chaplain," 
added  the  justice,  "if  all  the  parsons  of 
Christendom  were  to  tell  me  that  I  did  not 
really  see  my  girl;  that  it  was  only  a  sub- 
jective impression,  I  would  tell  them  they  are 
wrong.  I  objectively  saw  her ;  and  that  at  a 
time  when  she  was  not  even  in  my  thoughts. " 
How  was  it  possible  for  that  girl  in  spirit- 
life  to  so  present  herself  to  her  father?  It 
was  the  question  he  asked  of  me.  The  an- 
swer, in  the  light  of  present-day  psychical  re- 
search and  knowledge,  is  not  a  difficult  one. 

The  Self,  considered  apart  from  any  bod- 
ily expression,  is  a  spiritual  entity,  and  in  its 
essence  is  Mind.  That  is  so  whether  the 
Self  be,  or  be  not,  encased  within  the  phys- 
ical. It  is  this  which  differentiates  the  hu- 
man being  from  other  creations,  and  espe- 
100 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

cially  links  him  with  God  Who  is  Supreme 
Mind.  In  this  age  of  scientific  Psychological 
enquiry,  we  now  know  Mind  to  be  a  forma- 
tive principle ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  capable  of 
impressing  itself  upon  that  which  is  closely 
associated  with  it,  in  such  a  way  as  to  visu- 
alize itself.  Thus  even  when  the  Self  is  in- 
carnate, and  under  the  restrictive  conditions 
of  the  physical,  it  is  able  to  make  its  im- 
print upon  the  physical  organization.  Good 
thoughts,  or  bad  ones,  will,  if  persisted  in, 
stamp  themselves  upon  the  face  of  an  indi- 
vidual. Further,  the  detachment  of  the  Self 
from  a  material  body  enhances  the  powers 
and  possibilities  of  the  Mind.  There  was  no 
reason  why  it  was  expedient  for  us  that  our 
Lord  should  leave  earthly  conditions,  except 
that  His  mental  power  to  bless  mankind  was 
enhanced  thereby.  Again,  the  spirit-body 
with  which  the  Self  is  clothed  after  death,  is 
so  constituted  as  to  be  more  fully  and  per- 
fectly the  vehicle  by  which  the  enhanced 
Mind  can  express  itself.  On  that  plastic,  reg- 
istering spiritual  body  can  be  impressed, 
shaped  and  visualized  the  thoughts  and  pic- 
tures which  the  Mind  conceives.  Why  was 
Jesus,  at  one  time,  seen  in  an  appearance 
which  was  recognisable,  and  at  another  time 

101 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

in  one  which  was  unrecognisable?  Was  it 
that  a  physical  body  experienced  a  series  of 
quick  transformative  changes,  or  was  it  that 
His  thought  of  Himself,  as  He  wished  Him- 
self to  appear  to  others,  created  a  thought 
form,  which,  as  long  as  that  thought  was 
held  by  Him,  impressed  itself  upon  and  about 
the  spiritual  body?  I  know  of  no  explana- 
tion, other  than  this,  which  will  account  for 
the  fact  that  hundreds  of  the  departed,  in 
these  times,  in  appearance  as  they  w^ere  be- 
fore leaving  this  life,  have  been  objectively 
seen,  heard,  touched,  and  have,  by  action  on 
the  plane  of  the  physical,  demonstrated  their 
presence  and  reality.  But  there  is  still  an- 
other wonderful  possibility  connected  with 
the  Self  after  it  has  left  the  earth-life.  It 
can,  under  certain  conditions,  even  build  up 
around  its  spiritual  body,  what  may  be  called 
a  temporary  super-encasement, which  is  phys- 
ical in  its  constitution  and  appearance.  This 
latter  is,  for  the  time  being,  as  real  as  any 
other  physical  body ;  and  it  is  appreciable  by 
sight,  touch  and  hearing,  as  our  present  bod- 
ies are.  But  it  is  evanescent  in  its  character. 
It  can  be  assumed  by  the  spiritual  Self  for  a 
purpose — the  purpose  of  making  the  Self 
cognisable  to  physical  eyes — and  when  that 

102 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

end  has  been  attained,  the  snper-encasement 
is  discarded  and  dissolved.  It  is  but  a  con- 
comitant, and  not  an  essential,  of  the  spirit- 
ual; as  Christ's  earthly  Body  was  but  a  con- 
comitant, and  not  an  essential,  of  His  Divine 
Self.  And  this  super-garb  of  the  spiritual 
Self  can  only  exist,  as  in  His  case,  just  as 
long  as  spiritual  presence  is  manifesting  it- 
self to  those  seeing  through  the  flesh.  It  may 
be  asked,  how  is  it  possible  for  a  being,  who 
has  left  earth-life,  and  who  exists  as  a  spirit 
in  a  spirit-body,  to  super-clothe  himself  with 
the  physical  ?  It  is  effected  by  drawing,  from 
the  domain  of  the  physical,  material  par- 
ticles which  are  built  up,  for  the  purpose  of 
physical  cognition,  around  the  spiritual, 
moulding,  shape-producing  Self.  Perhaps 
the  best  illustration  of  this  power  of  the  spir- 
itual Self  to  assume  this  temporary  super- 
added enwrapment  is  to  be  found  in  the  case 
of  the  crystal.  In  it  we  have  an  example  of 
how  a  living,  formative  principle  can  gather 
from  its  surroundings,  by  an  inherent  power 
of  cohesive  attraction,  those  various  forms 
of  crystallization  which  have  been  mathemat- 
ically defined.  This  power  of  a  spiritual  Self, 
as  being  able,  in  its  manifestation  of  itself  to 
physical  eyes,  to  assume,  for  the  time  being, 

103 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

physical  conditions  of  appearance,  is  no  idea 
born  of  imagination.  The  Bible  bears  testi- 
mony to  the  possibility.  The  spiritual  be- 
ings, the  angels,  who  figure  so  largely  in  the 
Sacred  Writings,  came  to  those  in  the  flesh,  in 
all  the  appearance  and  reality  of  ones  phys- 
ically encased.  The  three  angels  who  came 
to  Abraham,  as  he  sat  in  the  tent  door,  by 
the  oaks  of  Mamre,  in  the  heat  of  the  day, 
were  not  in  appearance  physically  different 
from  other  men.  He  proposed  to  fetch  water 
to  wash  their  feet ;  and  that  they  should  rest 
themselves  and  eat  bread.  And  the  Biblical 
record  states  that  they  actually  did  eat.  In 
Genesis  xix.  we  have  an  account  of  two  an- 
gels who  came  to  Lot.  He  asked  them  to 
wash  their  feet,  and  to  enter  his  house,  and 
"he  made  them  a  feast,  and  did  bake  un- 
leavened bread,  and  they  did  eat. ' '  And  so  I 
might  instance  a  number  of  cases  recorded  in 
the  Bible,  in  which  spiritual  visitants  to  men 
were  just  the  same  in  appearance  to  those  to 
whom  they  came,  as  any  ordinary  men;  and 
did  exactly  what  those  in  the  eartlily  body 
do.  How  is  the  Christian,  who  professes  to 
believe  in  what  the  Bible  states,  going  to  ex- 
plain this?  Spiritual  beings,  declared  to  be 
angels,  present  themselves  on  the  earth-plane 
104 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

exactly  as  you  or  I  might  have  presented 
ourselves — had  we  been  living  in  the  time  of 
Abraham  and  Lot.  Well,  the  ordinary  Chris- 
tian does  not  attempt  to  explain  it.  He  just 
takes  the  Bible  statements,  and  accepts  them 
as  being  true,  without  bothering  himself  as 
to  whether  they  have  any  basis  in  probable 
fact.  He  puts  credulity  in  the  place  of  faith ; 
and  does  not  seem  to  know  that  faith  re- 
quires a  mental  and  moral  acquiescence  on 
our  part  in  regard  to  what  we  are  asked  to 
believe.  The  position  of  some  of  us  who  know 
something  about  Psychical  Phenomena,  and 
the  possibilities  of  the  Self  after  death,  is 
very  different.  We  have  no  difficulty  in  ac- 
cepting the  Bible  records  as  true.  We  know 
that  one  of  the  possibilities  of  a  spirit-Self  is 
that  of  being  able,  under  certain  conditions 
and  for  specific  purpose,  to  assume  a  super- 
structure which  in  its  character  is  physical, 
and  as  long  as  it  is  retained  by  the  Self, 
comes  under  laws  which  govern  the  physical. 
May  it  not  be  that  the  knowledge  of  this  will 
remove  a  difficulty  which  confronts  all  Chris- 
tian teachers  in  regard  to  the  Eastertide 
manifestations  of  our  Lord?  If  we  take  the 
greater  number  of  the  Gospel  records  of 
these  manifestations,  we  are  driven  to  the 

105 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

conclusion  (as  I  am  now  trying  to  show) 
that  He  was  not  then  in  a  physical  body.  The 
powers  of  which  that  Body  was  capable  neg- 
ative the  thought.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Gospel  accounts  certainly  do  give  circum- 
stances concerning  Him  which  seem  to  fa- 
vour the  supposition  that  His  Body  at  that 
time  was  a  physical  one.  For  example,  St. 
Luke  records  that  Jesus  showed  His  disci- 
ples His  hands  and  His  feet;  and  that  when 
they  gave  Him  a  piece  of  broiled  fish,  He 
took  it,  and  did  eat  before  them.  But  sup- 
pose we  assume  from  this  that  Jesus  was 
still  tied  to  the  physical,  because  He  did  that 
which  is  co;mmonly  supposed  to  be  only  pos- 
sible in  regard  to  a  physical  body.  Are  we 
confronted  with  a  set  of  contradictory  state- 
ments ?  Was  the  Body  in  which  He  presented 
Himself  at  Easter  both  a  non-physical,  and 
a  physical  one!  I  think  not.  The  one  set  of 
Gospel  statements  which  record  that  His 
Body  was  capable  of  that  of  which  no  phys- 
ical body  is  capable,  simply  tell  us  of  the 
Christ  manifestation  of  Himself  in  His  spir- 
itual Body,  which  could  take  and  register  on 
its  plastic  form  every  mental  impulse  of  its 
indwelling  Self.  The  Gospel  statements 
which  tell  of  Jesus'  Body  as  doing  that  of 

106 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

which  a  physical  body  is  capable,  indicate,  I 
think,  to  ns  that  His  spiritual  Self  did  that 
which  is,  undoubtedly,  a  possibility  to  spirit- 
ual beings,  viz.,  to  assume  temporarily  the 
conditions  of  the  physical;  to  exercise  the 
power  of  attracting  from  the  environment  of 
the  earthly,  a  super-form  which,  as  long  as  it 
is  held,  is  its  nature  and  possibilities  phys- 
ical. The  Bible  statements  show  that  Jesus 
at  Easter  did  but  that  which  angels  who  vis- 
ited men  are  declared  to  have  done.  They, 
accounted  as  never  possessed  of  earthly  bod- 
ies, appeared  as  physical  existences;  they 
talked  with,  touched,  and  ate  with  men.  And 
so  did  He.  I  humbly  submit  that  only  this 
explanation  will  give  us  anything  like  a  co- 
herent idea  on  this  all-important  subject. 

Have  we  any  other  evidence  as  to  this  pos- 
sibility concerning  the  spiritual  Self?  Yes. 
A  distinguished  scientist,  now  living,  whose 
name  is  known  throughout  the  civilised 
world,  has  published  his  experience  in  regard 
to  this  possibility.  He  narrates  how,  under 
strict  scientific  tests,  he  saw  a  material  form 
built  up  around  a  presence.  I  have  seen  the 
same  thing.  Some  years  ago,  in  company 
with  a  brother  clergyman,  I  saw  a  spiritual 
presence   (at  first  invisible)   manifest  itself 

107 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

in  all  the  reality  of  physical  encasement.   It 
was  in  the  poorly-furnished  parlour  of  an 
artisan.   There  was  no  cabinet,  no  apparatus 
of  trickery.   There,  in  the  light,  we  and  four 
others,  first  heard  the  voice  of  a  little  child 
(the  deceased  daughter  of  the  workman  in 
whose  house  we  were).   Slowly  in  the  center 
of  the  room,  there  accumulated  a  vaporous, 
white  mist,  which  seemed  to  come  from  us 
who  were  sitting  in  a  semi-circle.  Gradually, 
in  the  sight  of  all  of  us,  the  mist  assumed 
consolidarity  and  shape;  and  in  about  ten 
minutes  there  stood  in  that  room,  a  little  girl 
about  six  years  of  age,  as  real  as  any  other 
child.    She  spoke,  she  moved,  she  went  and 
kissed   her    mother   who    was   present,    she 
passed  closely  before  me,  she  chattered  in  a 
child-like  way ;  and  then,  in  the  midst  of  say- 
ing something,  exclaimed :  ' '  The  power  is  go- 
ing."   AVe  all  watched  her  as  the  physical 
form  melted ;  and  when  she  became  invisible, 
we    still   heard    a    little   voice,    "Good-bye, 
mother  dear;  I  will  come  again,  if  I  may." 
I  have  only  one  thing  to  say  in  regard  to  this 
experience.    It   was   no    hallucination.     Six 
persons  were  witnesses  of  it,  and  it  would 
be  as  impossible  to  shake  my  belief  in  what 
I  saw,  as  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 

108 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

convince  the  justice  (to  whom  I  have  refer- 
red) that  he  did  not  really  see  his  daughter 
after  death. 

I  have  no  space  to  adduce  further  testi- 
mony. If  any  reader  has  not  grasped  the 
possibilities  of  the  Self  after  severance  from 
the  earthly  body,  it  will  open  his  mental  eyes 
considerably,  if  he  will  read  the  two  volumes 
of  the  late  Professor  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  '^  Hu- 
man Personality,  and  Its  Survival  of  Bodily 
Death."  This  work  was  the  result  of  twenty 
years  or  more  of  most  careful,  laborious  and 
scientific  investigation  of  the  subject. 

We  may  gather  from  the  Gospel  records 
other  testimony  than  that  adduced  in  the 
foregoing  pages,  viz.,  that  the  Self  of  our 
Lord  after  crucifixion  was  not  encased  in  a 
body  physical,  but  spiritual.  Not  only,  at 
Easter,  could  Jesus  change  the  appearance  of 
Himself,  but  He  could  do  other  things  which 
transcend  the  possibilities  of  the  physical. 
He  could  render  His  bodily  presence  invis- 
ible. He  could  cause  His  being  to  pass 
through  closed  doors.  He  could  transport 
Himself,  irrespective  of  limitations  of  Time 
and  Space,  from  place  to  place.  The  Body 
He  wore  could  act  in  contravention  of  the 
109 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

laws  of  gravitation.    What  are  the  Gospel 
statements  as  regards  these  points? 

As  to  the  power  of  rendering  Himself  in- 
visible. At  Emmaus,  as  He  sat  in  the  pres- 
ence of  two  disciples,  and  took  bread,  and 
blessed  it,  and  brake  and  gave  it  to  them,  St. 
Luke  records  that  ' '  He  vanished  out  of  their 
sight. ' '  His  bodily  presence  was  able  to  pass 
through  closed  doors.  St.  John  mentions  that 
"the  doors  were  shut  where  the  disciples 
were,  for  fear  of  the  Jews,"  and  that  then 
"Jesus  came  and  stood  in  the  midst."  He 
could  transport  His  presence,  apart  from 
considerations  of  Time  and  Space,  from 
place  to  place.  According  to  the  Gospel-rec- 
ords, Mary  Magdalene  and  other  women 
went  early  on  the  first  Easter  morning  to  the 
sepulchre.  Mary,  seeing  the  stone  rolled 
away,  had  her  worst  fears  aroused,  and  leav- 
ing the  other  women,  ran  off  to  acquaint 
Simon  Peter  and  John  of  the  ominous  cir- 
cumstance. In  the  meanwhile  the  other 
women  pursued  their  way  to  the  sepulchre. 
There  they  saw  a  spiritual  being,  "a  young 
man"  (an  angel),  who  bade  them  tell  the 
disciples  that  Jesus  was  not  there,  but  risen. 
The  women  consequently  hastened  to  Jeru- 
salem:  Mary  had  already  reached  there,  and 

110 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

had  hurried  back  to  the  tomb,  following  Pe- 
ter and  John.  The  two  men  had  made  their 
wonder-arousing  inspection  and  gone,  and 
left  Mary  standing  without  the  tomb  weep- 
ing. The  other  women  were,  by  then,  a  long 
way  on  their  road  to  the  city.  And  yet  Jesus 
appeared  to  Mary  at  that  tomb-side,  and  un- 
der conditions  which  made  it  physically  im- 
possible to  overtake  those  women  on  their 
journey,  appeared  to  them  also,  and  greeted 
them,  in  His  recognisable  Form,  with  His 
"All  hail!" 

There  is  another  instance  of  Jesus'  power 
of  quickly  transporting  His  bodily  presence 
from  one  place  to  another. 

The  day  was  far  spent,  the  evangelist 
states,  when  Jesus  in  company  with  the  two 
disciples  went  into  the  house  at  Emmaus; 
and  yet  on  that  same  evening  He  was  in  a 
room  with  closed  doors,  seven  or  eight  miles 
distant.  Further,  the  body  worn  by  Jesus 
at  that  first  Easter-time  could  act  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  which  govern  physics.  St.  Luke 
records  that  in  bodily  presence  He  "was 
taken  up,  and  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of 
their  sight."  A  physical  body  has  no  ascen- 
sion power. 

Now  none  of  these  records  concerning  our 
111 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Lord  are  reconcilable  with  the  thought  of 
Him  as  being  after  death  in  a  physical  body ; 
but  they  are  concordant  with  the  belief  that 
He  was  then  in  a  spiritual  body;  and  more- 
over, our  knowledge  of  psychic  facts  and  of 
the  possibilities  connected  with  spiritual  ex- 
istence, places  these  experiences  in  the  do- 
main of  the  verifiable.  And  is  not  this  what 
we  should  expect,  if  we  regard  Jesus,  al- 
though the  eternal  Son  of  God,  yet  truly  and 
essentially  "the  Son  of  Man"  also?  AVhy 
did  He  so  persistently  claim  this  title,  if  in 
the  greatest  experience  which  can  befall  hu- 
man nature — the  change  after  death,  His  ex- 
periences were  in  principle  and  character  so 
radically  different  from  ours: 

I  even  venture  to  think  that  the  fulness  of 
the  Gospel  of  Life  and  Immortality  can  never 
be  adequately  realised,  until  the  Jesus  of 
Eastertide  is  viewed  as  standing  to  us  as 
the  demonstration,  the  pledge,  and  assurance 
of  what  we  shall  be ;  not  at  some  far-off  dis- 
tant day,  but  at  that  time  when  the  Self, 
breaking  away  from  the  perishable  encase- 
ment of  the  physical,  shall,  in  its  already 
possessed  enwrapment  of  the  spiritual,  rise 
to  an  anastasis  of  fuller  life  and  ampler  ex- 
perience. 

112 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

An  important  question  will  suggest  itself 
to  the  thoughtful  reader  in  connection  with 
the  foregoing.  It  is  this.  What  can  we  think 
befell  that  physical  Body  of  our  Lord,  in 
which  He  was  "tabernacled"  during  His 
earthly  life,  and  which  died  on  the  cross? 
Was  that  dead  Form  which  lay  in  Joseph's 
sepulchre,  so  re-kindled  into  life  as  to  con- 
tinue, in  nature  and  organisation,  the  same 
as  it  had  been  before  it  died?  If  we  answer, 
**yes,"  difficulties  at  once  obtrude  them- 
selves. The  Body  in  which  Jesus  manifested 
Himself  at  Easter-time,  exhibited  powers  not 
possessed  by  any  physical  body;  and  the 
thought  of  a  raised  physical  body  passing 
into  Heaven — the  pre-eminent  sphere  of  spir- 
itual existence,  is  certainly  opposed  to  St. 
Paul's  declaration,  "Flesh  and  blood  cannot 
inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  Are  we,  there- 
fore, to  think  that  the  dead  Body  of  Jesus 
was  re-kindled  into  life  as  a  physical  body, 
and  afterwards  transmuted  into  a  spiritual 
hodyl  Here  again  a  difficulty  is  presented. 
Such  would  seem  to  be  a  reversal  of  the  di- 
vine order  of  things.  We  regard  the  physical 
as  arising  from,  and  owing  its  existence  to, 
the  spiritual;  and  not  the  spiritual  as  being 
the  outcome  of  the  physical.  The  source  of 
113 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

all  material  expression  lies  in  spirit ;  and  not 
that  spirit  is  derivable  from  matter.  That 
will,  surely,  be  granted.  Is  there  not  a  diffi- 
culty in  supposing  that  the  spiritual  body  in 
which  Jesus  appeared  after  death,  owed  its 
existence  to  a  body  which  had  come  into  be- 
ing on  the  plane  of  the  physical?  The  Gospel 
records  give  us  very  clear  and  precise  state- 
ments as  to  the  personality  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
after  dying.  Do  they  give  us  any  definite 
knowledge  as  to  what  befell  the  dead  earthly 
Body  of  Him?  I  do  not  think  they  do.  May 
we  not  rather  detect,  on  the  part  of  the  evan- 
gelistic writers,  a  silence  as  to  this  particular 
point?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  they  did  not 
actually  know,  and  that  it  was  intended  that 
we  should  not  actually  know,  all  that  hap- 
pened to  the  erstwhile  physical  enwrapment 
of  Jesus?  May  not  the  motive  of  this  with- 
held information  have  been  that  the  Master 
after  death  wished  rather  to  focus  the  gaze 
of  mankind  upon  Himself  as  an  ever-living 
spiritual  Self,  encased  in  the  garb  of  the 
spiritual  than  upon  a  physical  body,  which 
He  had  once  inhabited  and  left?  St.  Peter, 
referring  to  Jesus  after  crucifixion,  speaks 
of  the  quickening  of  Christ  as  being  in  the 
sphere  of  spirit.  He  writes  that  He  was 
114 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

''put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  hut  quickened  in 
the  spirit;  in  which  (this  quickened  condi- 
tion) also  He  went  and  preached  unto  the 
spirits  in  keeping"  (I  Pet.  iii.  18,  19).  St. 
Paul  also,  makes  a  remarkable  statement 
w^hich  conflicts  with  the  idea  that  the  body 
in  which  Jesus  show^ed  Himself  at  Easter, 
was  the  physically  revived  body  which  died 
at  Calvary.  In  II  Cor.  v.  16  he  writes,  "Even 
though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh, 
yet  notv  ive  knoiu  Hiin  so  no  more." 

We  turn  now  to  the  statements  of  the  evan- 
gelists concerning  the  circumstances  con- 
nected with  the  crucified  Body  of  our  Lord. 
St.  Peter,  in  his  sermon  at  Pentecost,  de- 
clared that  Christ's  flesh  "did  not  see  cor- 
ruption." That  fact  implies  that  there  is  a 
point  of  difference,  not  between  the  Self  of 
Jesus  as  the  true  "Son  of  Man"  and  our 
Selves,  in  the  act  of  physically  dying ;  but  a 
difference  as  to  what  befell  the  earthly  garb 
He  wore  and  what  befalls  the  earthly  garb 
we  w^ear.  The  Body  of  Jesus  did  not  moulder 
in  a  grave.  As  far  as  we  know,  it  was  not 
seen  by  human  eyes  after  that  Friday  even- 
ing, when  the  women  helped  in  the  last  sad 
offices  at  the  sepulchre,  and  noted  "how  His 
Body  was  laid."  What  followed  is  signifi- 
115 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

cant.  In  the  early  morning  of  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  those  same  women,  on  arriving  at 
the  sepulchre,  found  the  stone  rolled  away; 
and  a  spiritual  being,  after  telling  them  that 
Jesus  was  not  there  but  risen,  specially  in- 
vited them  to  "come  and  see  the  place  ivJiere 
the  Lord  lay."  Something  strange  had  taken 
place.  They  saw  the  linen  cloths  lying  exactly 
in  the  position  in  which  they  were  on  that 
Friday  evening,  except  that  the  dead  Form 
beneath  them  was  gone.  Had  it  been  removed 
by  friends  or  foes?  The  undisturbed  grave- 
clothes  excluded  the  idea.  Had  it,  with  re- 
stored life,  arisen  from  its  prostrate  position? 
The  grave-clothes  would  have  been  disturbed 
thereby,  unless — an  incredible  thought — they 
had  been  purposelycarefully  replaced  as  they 
were  before.  So  in  their  wonder  and  perplex- 
ity, the  women  hurried  back  to  Jerusalem  to 
the  apostles,  to  whom  their  words  were  *'as 
idle  talk,  and  they  disbelieved  them."  But 
Peter  would  test  the  truthfulness  of  the  wom- 
en's story.  St.  Luke  recounts  that  "he  arose 
and  ran  unto  the  tomb,  and  stooping  down 
and  looking  in,  he  seeth  the  linen  cloths  hy 
themselves — (the  body  had  gone) ;  and  he  de- 
parted to  his  home,  wondering  at  that  which 
was  come  to  pass."  St.  John,  also,  went  into 

116 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  sepulchre;  and  after  noting  the  position 
of  the  grave-clothes,  the  record  states,  "He 
saw  and  believed/'  But  what  caused  him  to 
believe?  Was  there  something  in  connection 
with  those  grave-clothes  which  led  him  to 
give  credence  to  the  women's  words  about  a 
risen  Jesus,  when  as  yet  he  had  not  seen  the 
living  Master  ?  Perhaps  so ;  we  do  not  know. 
Is  there  any  deep  significance  in  these  re- 
peated references  to  the  place  where  the 
Body  of  Jesus  was  laid,  Jiow  His  Body  was 
laid,  the  grave-clothes,  and  their  disposition? 
On  that  first  Easter  morning  there  stood  in 
that  sepulchre,  beside  a  lifeless  physical 
Form,  a  Jesus  in  all  the  wonder  and  mystery 
of  spiritual  being.  That  sacred  dead  Thing 
lying  there  had  been  His  super-vesture,  as 
He  had  sorrowfully  passed  across  the  stage 
of  earthly  existence.  It  could  not  "see  cor- 
ruption"; It  had  been  worn  awhile  by  the  ex- 
alted Son  of  God  and  Man. 

May  it  have  been  that  the  Lord  over  phys- 
ical nature,  who  had  power  to  still  a  storm, 
to  multiply  bread,  and  to  cause,  by  a  word,  a 
tree  to  wither,  caused  the  physical  elements 
of  that  sacred  Body  to  he  dissipated,  as  it  lay 
beneath  those  grave-clothes;  because  it  was 
no  longer  needed  by  Him  as  He  energised 
117 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

from  the  plane  of  higher  spiritual  life  and 
possibilities?  We  do  not  know;  nor  is  it  im- 
portant now  for  us  to  know.  Only,  if  this 
be  so,  a  beautiful  thought  suggests  itself — 
that  now,  on  this  earth  on  which  we  live, 
there  are  somewhere,  in  the  circulative  power 
of  nature,  the  very  particles  which  once  con- 
stituted the  physical  Body  of  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure, 
that  it  was  no  physically-organised  Jesus 
who  appeared  at  that  Easter-time;  nor  was 
He  so  constituted,  when  subsequently  He  re- 
vealed Himself  from  a  still  loftier  plane  of 
spiritual  existence  to  the  martyred  Stephen, 
the  persecuting  Saul,  and  the  sorrowful  old 
apostle  at  Patmos. 

The  reader  will  perceive  ivliy  it  is  I  have 
dwelt  somewhat  lengthily  upon  the  fact  of 
our  Lord's  Personality  after  dying.  To  us, 
when  we  shall  come  to  die,  and  to  every  be- 
reaved one,  it  means  a  very  great  deal.  He 
is  the  true  ''Son  of  Man."  Can  I  think  of 
myself  when  dissociated  from  my  perishable 
earthly  body,  and  think  also  of  dear  ones 
gone  hence,  as  being  like  Him,  in  principle  of 
being,  as  He  was  in  those  Easter  weeks?  No ; 
not  if  I  have  to  suppose  that  His  personality 
and  powers,  then,  were  resultant  from  the 

118 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

re-animation  and  resumption  by  Him  of  a 
physical  body  which  died.  I  must  wait,  and 
they  must  wait,  for  that  likeness  to  the  great 
Elder  Son  and  Brother  of  our  race,  until  the 
indefinite  "somewhen."  And  the  chilliness, 
the  blankness,  the  sense  of  broken  continu- 
ity, the  "sting  of  death"  is  left  to  us.  And 
nought  will  remove  it,  I  think,  but  the  glo- 
rious conviction  that  the  Jesus  of  Easter 
stands  to  us  as  the  pledge,  the  assurance,  and 
the  demonstration,  that  neither  the  Self,  nor 
its  bodily  spiritual  encasement,  is  touched  by 
the  hand  of  Physical  Death. 

It  is  on  the  basis  of  this  truth  that  all  I 
have  to  say  further  on  the  subject  of  our 
Self  after  death  rests;  and  may  it  not  be 
that  this  thought  of  Jesus,  as  being  in  the 
experience  of  dying  in  likeness  to  us,  will 
make  Him  to  earth's  sorrowful  ones  unspeak- 
ably more  precious,  and  invest  His  Gospel 
with  a  fuller  light  of  comfort  and  hope? 

III.  That,  after  death,  the  mental  poivers 
and  qualities  of  our  spiritually-encased  Self 
are  retained. 

Nothing  can  be  more  needed  by  us,  in  view 
of  our  own  departure  from  this  life  and  the 
departure  of  those  we  love,  than  assurance 
119 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

on  this  point.  If  it  could  be  showm  that  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  while  opening  out  the  vision 
of  a  future  Heaven  for  mankind,  is  silent  as 
to  the  Self's  maintained  mentality  when  out 
of  the  earthly  body,  it  would,  I  think,  cease 
to  be  the  Gospel  which  robs  death  of  its  sting. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  me,  that  any  idea  of  the 
discarnate  Self  as  being  bereft  of  mental 
powers  and  qualities,  does  away  wholly  with 
the  notion  of  a  Self  as  an  individual  and  a 
consciousness.  One  is  convinced  that  he  is  a 
Self,  an  individual,  and  a  consciousness — 
why?  Because  of  indwelling  mind  and  qual- 
ities. Were  it  possible  for  a  spiritual  entity 
to  exist  without  mind  and  thought,  it  would 
be  less  than  a  Self;  individuality  would  be 
lacking.  It  could  only,  in  that  case,  be  an  un- 
individualised  vital  essence,  which  might 
form  the  basis  for  an  individualitj^  to  be 
called  into  existence;  but  no  more.  There 
have  been,  in  the  past,  a  great  many  Chris- 
tians who  have  believed  that  at  physical  death 
the  Self,  although  not  destroyed,  becomes  a 
mentally  and  qualitatively  denuded  thing;  a 
sort  of  semi-consciousness,  that  has  to  await 
re-union  with  a  resuscitated  earthly  body,  be- 
fore the  character  and  powers  of  Selfhood, 
meanwhile  suspended,  can  be  regained.    But 

120 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

continuity  of  mind  and  consciousness  is  an 
essential  of  Selfhood;  and  there  could  be  no 
identification  of  the  Self  to  he  with  the  Self 
that  ivas,  unless  in  the  interval  the  continuity 
of  mind  had  been  maintained.  In  what  way 
am  I  to  think  of  myself  when  this  physical 
of  me  shall  have  been  laid  aside  as  the  dis- 
used garment  of  the  temporal?  How  may  I 
picture  my  dear  ones  and  those  other  myr- 
iads who  have  gone  hence?  May  I  think  of 
them  as  the  ones  over  whom  death  has  no 
power,  except  that  it  has  stripped  from  off 
them  a  husk  of  being?  The  imperishable  Self 
— does  it  remain  unimpaired  in  undergoing 
the  change?  Encased  in  its  finer  vesture  of 
the  spiritual,  does  it  retain  its  thoughts,  its 
memory,  its  power  to  sympathise,  love  and 
pray,  its  desire  to  help,  and  its  capability  of 
receiving  the  thought-waves  of  blessing  sent 
out  to  it  by  others?  Can  there  come  to  it  as 
discarnate  what  came  to  it  as  incarnate — 
that  it  could  be  loved  by  another  soul,  and 
could  love  that  one?  This  is  what  I  mean  by 
the  mental  powers  and  qualities  of  our  Self 
being  retained  after  death. 

And  what  answer  can  be  given  to  these 
questionings?  An  affirmative  one,  if  that  an- 
swer be  given  in  the  light  of  the  Jesus  of 
121 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Easter,  and  the  lesser  light  which  streams 
from  the  declarations  of  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  Epistles. 

(a)     The  retention  of  the  Mind  itself. 

Before  considering  what  poivers  of  the 
mind  are  possessed  by  the  discarnate  Self,  it 
may  seem  w^ell  to  estimate  what  sort  of  tes- 
timony we  have  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ  for 
the  fact  that  Mind  itself  survives  physical 
dissolution.  And  yet  it  would  hardly  seem 
necessary  to  do  this ;  because  if  this  fact  were 
eliminated  from  the  New  Testament  Writ- 
ings, it  would  be  as  if  those  Writers  had  es- 
sayed to  produce  a  beautiful  piece  of  mental 
tapestry,  without  a  canvas  of  truth  to  work 
it  on ;  or  to  raise  a  great  building  of  Thought 
on  no  foundation  of  fact.  We  contend  that 
the  teachings  and  demonstrations  of  our 
Lord,  as  well  as  the  declarations  of  His 
Apostles,  are  inexplicable,  except  on  the 
basis  that  the  mentality  of  the  Self  is  neither 
destroyed  nor  impaired  by  death.  What  do 
the  teachings,  and  experiences  of  Jesus  in  His 
earth-life,  show  on  this  point?  I  have  already 
referred  to  many  of  His  teachings.  When  He 
told  His  parable  about  Dives  and  Lazarus, 
did  not  His  representation  of  those  two  dis- 
carnate Selves  imply  and  plainly  teach,  that 
122 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  mentality  of  both  was  preserved  ?  It  is,  to 
my  mind,  a  blasphemous  thought  that  Jesus, 
in  this  story,  spoke  in  such  a  way  as  was  cal- 
culated to  mislead  men  on  a  most  important 
of  truths.  Again,  when  Jesus  spoke  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac  and  Jacob  as  still,  after  death, 
"living  unto  God,"  did  that  statement  not 
imply  maintained  mentality?  Can  we  sup- 
pose that  anyone  can  "live  unto  God,"  Who 
is  Supreme  Mind,  except  that  one  be  himself 
possessed  of  mind?  Turn  now,  to  that  spir- 
itual experience  connected  with  the  Transfig- 
uration. Moses  and  Elijah  figure  in  that  in- 
cident. They  were  both  Selves  in  Other-Life. 
St.  Mark — the  amanuensis  of  St.  Peter  who 
was  present  on  the  occasion — says,  "They 
were  talking  with  Jesus."  To  talk,  as  they 
did,  with  the  world's  Eedeemer  on  a  momen- 
tous subject,  as  the  Evangelist  states,  surely 
must  include  the  idea  of  the  exercise  of  Mind 
on  the  part  of  those  departed  men ;  and  that, 
too,  on  a  high  plane  of  action.  Then,  there 
are  the  words  of  Jesus,  spoken  as  He  was 
dying  on  the  cross,  to  a  crucified  one  beside 
Him.  ' '  This  very  day,  thou  shalt  be  with  Me 
in  Paradise."  "What  sort  of  a  meeting  be- 
tween the  discarnate  Self  of  the  Son  of  Man 
and  the  discarnate  Self  of  the  repentant  thief 

123 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

can  we  imagine,  apart  from  the  remaining 
Mind  of  both?  Again,  St.  Peter  states  that 
Jesus,  in  the  interval  between  Good  Friday 
afternoon  and  Easter  early  morning,  was 
prosecuting  His  mission  of  saving  souls  in 
the  Beyond,  by  preaching  His  glorious  Gos- 
pel to  "the  spirits  in  keeping."  He  was  out 
of  the  flesh,  and  so  were  they  to  whom  He 
preached.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  the 
Preacher  and  His  hearers  were  mindlessi 
The  answer  is  obvious ;  and  it  cuts  away  com- 
pletely the  idea  that  physical  dying  strips 
any  Self  of  mentality.  Turn  now  to  the  mani- 
festations of  our  Lord  at  Easter-time.  Every 
one  of  those  manifestations  is  characterised 
by  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  energising  in  the 
domain  of  Mind.  It  was  no  mindless,  speech- 
less, shadowy  simulacrum  which  appeared  to 
the  Apostles  and  others  during  those  truth-re- 
vealing forty  days ;  but  a  Jesus  Who  had  left 
earth-life,  and  in  and  through  Whose  spirit- 
ual Body  mental  power  expressed  itself  in  all 
its  potency.  Take  the  men  whom  He  impress- 
ed with  this  truth.  St.  Paul,  for  instance, 
wrote  in  Phil.  i.  21,  23,  ''For  to  me  to  live  is 
Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain  .  .  .  But  I  am  in 
a  strait  betwixt  the  two,  having  the  desire  to 
depart  and  to  be  with  Christ ;  for  it  is  very 
124 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

far  better;  yet  to  abide  in  the  flesh  is  more 
needful  for  your  sake."  It  was  the  mind  of 
the  Apostle,  as  it  focussed  itself  on  Jesus, 
which  made  him  able  to  write,  ''To  me  to  live 
is  Christ."  Can  we  suppose  that  his  desire 
to  depart  this  life,  and  to  be  with  Christ 
would  have  existed,  apart  from  his  belief  that 
the  Mind  would  not  be  harmed  or  diminished 
by  the  touch  of  physical  death?  Very  much 
more  might  be  adduced  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  confirmation  of  the  truth  with  which 
we  are  dealing ;  but  the  foregoing  will  suffice. 
If  the  mighty  import  of  the  statements  of 
that  Book,  around  which  the  religious 
thoughts  of  the  centuries  have  grouped  them- 
selves, be  grasped,  surely  to  the  one  who  is 
called  to  face  the  experience  of  dying,  and  to 
those  who  mourn  for  the  departed,  it  will  be- 
come unspeakably  precious.  For  it  tells  us 
that  the  spiritually-clad  Self,  as  it  leaves  the 
shell  of  the  Physical,  takes  with  itself  the 
Mind.  But  the  Gospel  records  tell  us  more 
than  this. 

(b)     The  retention  of  Memory. 

No  assurance  we  can  receive  as  to  the  sur- 
vival of  our  Mind  in  the  incident  of  dying, 
apart  from  the  fact  that  the  power  of  Mem- 
ory is  then  retained,  can  possibly  satisfy  the 
125 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

yearnings  and  hopes  of  the  human  spirit. 
How  can  it?  As  far  as  we  know,  in  regard  to 
ourselves,  Mind  is  greatly,  if  not  wholly,  de- 
pendent upon  Memory.   It  is  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,   to    dissociate    Mind,    as   it   ex- 
presses  itself  in   Thought,   from   Memory. 
Take  any  thought  which  is  held  as  a  clear  and 
definite  mental  impression.    Whence  did  it 
come?    From  the  mind,  you  say.    But  what 
gave  it  its  particular  character  as  a  definite 
mental  impression?   Memory,  w^e  think.   Fix 
your  thought  on  anything  you  will.  You  hold 
a  defined  impression  of  it.    But  your  mind 
has  built  up  that  impression  on  what  is  re- 
7nembered.  Your  Sub-liminal  Mind  which,  as 
the  Scientists  of  to-day  tell  us,  forgets  noth- 
ing, has  registered  in  the  department  of  your 
spiritual  being,  all  that  you  have  heard  and 
been  taught,  all  that  you  have  read,  and  all 
that  you  have  thought  before,  about  that  par- 
ticular subject.  Your  present  thought,  begot- 
ten of  the  Mind,  has,  therefore,  been  moulded 
into  mental  distinctness  by  Memory.    The 
tliinking  powers  of  mankind  would  be  sorry 
manifestations  of  Mind-Force  apart  from  the 
constructive  factor  of  Memory.     Bring  this 
truth  into  the  concrete.    We  will  suppose  I 
am  conscious  that  I  am  about  to  die.    The 
126 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Gospel  of  Christ  says,  ''You  will  live  on, 
as  a  spiritually  enwrapped  Self  possessed  of 
Mind."  But  I  want  more  than  this.  I  want 
to  retain  my  Memory.  Shall  I  be  able  to 
think  at  all  without  it?  And  even  if  I  may 
be  able  to  do  so,  under  the  conditions  of  en- 
hanced being,  no  amount  of  increased  mental 
power,  if  dissevered  from  Memory,  will  com- 
pensate me  for  the  loss  of  a  Mind  which  could 
remember  the  past.  I  do  not  think  that  even 
''beatific  visions"  would  delight  my  soul  un- 
less, in  some  w^ay  or  another,  they  called  up 
recollections  of  the  past.  Further,  how  can 
my  discarnate  Self  be  the  continued  Self  of 
earth-life,  except  it  shall  be  able  to  remem- 
ber? 

0 !  mourning  one,  I  put  it  you.  That  dear 
one  you  loved,  and  still  love,  has  gone  into 
the  greater  domain  of  spiritual  existence.  If 
he  has  been  there  long  enough,  he  has  become 
mentally  developed.  Suppose,  as  a  few  cold, 
dry-as-dust,  metaphysical  writers  have  told 
us,  that  the  price  that  that  one  has  had  to 
pay  for  mental  development  is  loss  of  the 
memory  of  the  Past.  Well!  picture  him  in 
that  condition.  His  memory  has  been  oblit- 
erated. His  Mind  is  only  directed  on  the 
Present  and  Future.    Presently,  your  turn 

127 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

comes  to  go  into  that  Higher  Life.  There, 
you  meet  him,  recognise  him,  and  marvel  at 
his  mental  advancement ;  for  not  as  yet  have 
the  memories  of  your  mutual  love  and  the 
thousand  and  one  things  that  knit  you  to- 
gether quite  evaporated  from  your  soul.  But 
he  does  not  know  you;  his  memory  of  the 
past  has  gone.  Do  you  know  what  I  think 
you  would  do  in  such  a  case  ?  You  would  just 
bow  your  spiritual  head,  and  feel  "the  sting 
of  death"  afresh,  and  cry,  "0  my  God,  the 
disappointment,  the  bitterness  of  this ! ' ' 

In  the  teaching  of  Jesus  are  we  given  the 
assurance  that  the  Self,  after  death,  retains 
the  power  of  Memory?  Yes.  In  the  parable 
to  which  I  have  already  referred,  the  fact  is 
forcibly  declared.  The  rich  man  in  spirit- 
life  is  represented  as  being  told  by  Abraham 
to  "remember";  and  it  was  his  memory  of 
the  earth-life  which  caused  him  to  proffer  the 
request  that  Lazarus  might  be  sent  to  his 
father's  house  with  a  warning  to  his  five 
brethren.  Take  another  instance  of  our 
Lord's  teaching  on  this  point.  Speaking  of 
the  future  life.  He  declared  that  there  would 
be  unworthy  ones  who  would  come  to  Him  in 
that  day,  and  say,  "Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not 
prophesy  by  Thy  name,  and  by  Thy  name 

128 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

cast  out  evil  spirits,  and  by  Thy  name  do 
many  mighty  works?"     The  doing  of  these 
ones  was  that  which  was  connected  with  their 
Earth-life;  and  the  remembrance  of  it  from 
the  plane  of  Spirit-life  implies  that  Memory 
had  been  retained.  Again,  in  regard  to  those 
words  of  Jesus  spoken  to  the  thief  on  the 
cross,  do  they  bear  any  significance,  if  we 
suppose  that  the  thief  in  Paradise  carried 
with  him  no  recollection  of  the  horror  of  Cal- 
vary and  what  had  preceded  it?  But  it  is  to 
our  Lord  Himself,  as  He  was  at  Easter  after 
leaving  Physical  conditions,   that  we  must 
specially  turn   for   the   assurance   that   the 
memory  of  the  Self  is  preserved  after  death. 
With    respect    to    those    manifestations    of 
Jesus,  after  passing  into  Spirit-life,  I  will,  at 
this  point,  only  say  this — that  there  is  not 
one  of  them  which  does  not  demonstrate  the 
fact  that  Memory  is  retained  by  the  Spiritual 
Self.  He  remembered  Mary ;  He  remembered 
His  faithful  women-friends,  and  Peter  and 
that  man's  denial  of  Him,  and  loving  but 
doubting    Thomas,    and    the    thoughts,    the 
fears,  the  ignorances  and  short-comings  of 
the  men  who  had  been  His  companions  in 
earth-life.   So  comfort  your  heart,  sorrowing 
one!    The  cry  which  comes  from  your  an- 
129 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

guislied  spirit  is,  "  Oh !  if  I  could  only  be  sure 
that  my  dear  one  gone  hence  is  noiv — now  as 
I  lovingly  think  of  him — thinl^ing  of  me!" 
You  can  be  sure  of  it;  for  in  that  Jesus  of 
Easter,  the  true  Son  of  Man,  lies  the  pledge 
and  demonstration  that  those  passed  "Be- 
hind the  Veil"  remember  us,  and  remember, 
also,  those  experiences  of  earth  which  mys- 
teriously fashioned  the  cords  which  spirit- 
ually bind  them  to  us  and  us  to  them. 

(c)  The  retention  of  Love  for,  Sympathy 
with,  and  Interest  in,  those  left  in  Earth-life. 

A  lady,  shortly  after  the  death  of  her  hus- 
band, to  whom  she  was  devotedly  attached, 
said  to  me,  "Do  you  know  what  it  is  that 
makes  my  bereavement  so  very,  very  bitter 
to  me?  I  am  quite  sure  my  husband  is  living 
in  Other  Life ;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  he  can 
love  me  as  he  did,  and  is  still  interested  in 
what  concerns  me.  I  spoke  to  our  clerg>Tiian 
of  this ;  but  he  could  give  me  no  comfort.  He 
said  that  the  Scriptures  are  very  silent  on 
this  point;  that  there  would  be,  he  thought, 
re-union  at  "the  last  day";  but  of  the  rest 
we  know  very  little,  and  must  remember  that 
the  conditions  of  the  Other  Life  are  so  very 
different  from  what  obtains  here." 

But  it  is  not  true  that  the  Scriptures  are 

130 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

silent  on  this  point ;  and  in  the  light  of  them, 
and  of  present-day  knowledge  of  Spiritual 
facts,  it  is  an  incredible  thought  that  the  sur- 
viving Self  in  spirit-life  has  laid  aside  its 
love,  sympathy  and  concernfulness  in  regard 
to  those  who  have  been  left  behind.  If  it  were 
so,  it  would  mean  that  death,  instead  of  be- 
ing a  birth  into  fuller  life,  would  be  a  calam- 
ity to  human  beings.  It  would  involve  the  di- 
minishing and  de-humanizing  of  the  Self,  the 
stripping  it  of  those  qualities,  powers  and 
characteristics  which  made  it  the  Self,  and 
the  setting  up  in  its  place  of  a  self -centered 
Individuality  that,  whatever  might  be  its 
subjective  power  of  enjoying  bliss,  would  cer- 
tainly be  as  unlike  the  Self  that  was,  and  the 
Christ  Who  is,  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive. 
Well !  the  matter  which  concerns  us  is — what 
do  the  Gospel  records  declare  as  to  this  mat- 
ter? Does  our  Lord,  in  His  teaching  and 
after-death  manifestations,  clearly  show  that 
the  Self,  dissociated  from  the  physical  body, 
retains  Love,  Sympathy  and  Concernfulness 
in  respect  to  those  living  in  earth-life?  I 
think  so. 

^Vhen  Jesus  told  the  parable  of  the  Eich 
man  and  Lazarus,  which  was  meant  to  reveal 
to  us  what  might  be  the  consequences,  in 

131 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Spirit-life,  of  selfishness  and  lack  of  sympa- 
thy in  the  earth-life,  He  represented  the  rich 
man  in  Hades  as  becoming  solicitous  about 
his  five  brethren  remaining  on  earth.     The 
disciplining  of  the  After-Life  had  called  into 
existence  in  the  discarnate  man  the  qualities 
of   sympathy   and   cheerfulness;   and   those 
qualities  extended  themselves  to  the  earth- 
plane.    Can  we   suppose  that   Jesus   would 
have  made  such  a  representation,  had  there 
existed  no  basis  in  fact  for  the  same?    But 
turn  to  the  demonstrations  of  Jesus  in  re- 
spect to  this  particular  point.    The  Son  of 
God  Who  became  the  time  Son  of  Humanity, 
died  as  we  lesser  sons  and  daughters  of  Hu- 
manity have  to  die.    After  death,  from  the 
sphere  of  Spirit-life,  did  Jesus  show  that  He 
retained  those  essential  qualities  of  His  Self 
of  which  we  are  speaking?  Had  He  then  the 
same  kind   of  feelings  toward   dwellers   in 
earth-life,  as  He  had  before  He  physically 
died?   What  do  the  Gospel  records  declare? 
In  His  earth-life,  sympathy  and  concemful- 
ness  described  Jesus'  attitude  toward  Mary 
Magdalene.   In  spirit-life,  did  He  retain  those 
feelings   for   her?    You   know   the   answer. 
That  loving  faithful  woman,  as  she  wept  at 
the  sepulchre,  had  the  high  honour  of  being 

132 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  first  to  see  Jesus  as  He  manifested  Him- 
self from  Other-Life.  His  one  word, '  *  Mary, ' ' 
better  demonstrates  the  Self's  retention  of 
its  qualities  after  death,  than  all  the  learned 
disquisitions  of  theologians  could  set  forth. 
In  His  earth-life,  love,  sympathy  and  con- 
cernfulness  characterised  the  attitude  of 
Jesus  toward  those  women  who  followed  and 
ministered  to  Him.  He  had  wept  with  Mary 
and  Martha.  He  had  been  distressed  when 
*'the  daughters  of  Jerusalem"  bewailed  Him 
on  His  deathnUiarch  to  Calvary.  His  cheer- 
ing words,  ''Go  into  peace"  had  kindled  hope 
and  happiness  in  many  a  woman's  troubled 
soul.  From  the  height  of  Risen-lif e,  was  His 
sympathy  and  concern  for  them  gone?  Nay; 
it  was  to  them,  on  that  first  Easter  morning, 
that  He  presented  Himself  in  all  the  mystery 
of  enhanced  being,  and  spoke  those  calm-in- 
ducing words  which  voiced  the  fact  of  an  un- 
altered Jesus,  ''All  hail!" 

Read  on  in  the  Gospel  records.  To  Jesus, 
in  His  earthly  life,  poor,  weak  Peter  had  been 
an  object  of  special  concern  and  sympathy. 
He  had  prayed  for  him,  and  there  was  love 
and  sympathy  in  the  look  which  that  pale, 
tired  Prisoner  cast  upon  the  conscience- 
stricken  man  in  the  coui-t-yard  of  the  high- 
133 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

priest.  Were  those  qualities,  as  exercising 
themselves  in  the  direction  of  Peter,  existent 
in  Jesus  after  death  ?  What  was  it,  think  you, 
which  caused  the  Master,  on  Easter-day,  to 
reveal  Himself  first  to  Peter  of  all  the  men? 
Why  did  He  put  that  thrice-repeated  ques- 
tion to  him,  ''Lovest  thou  Me?"  Was  it  not 
that,  in  a  marvellously  refined  and  delicate 
manner,  Jesus  wished  to  remind  Peter  of  his 
weakness,  and  at  the  same  time  to  make  him 
know  that  nought  of  His  love  and  concernful- 
ness  had  diminished? 

Take  the  case  of  Thomas  the  doubter. 
Surely,  our  Lord's  way  of  dealing  with  him 
denotes  that  sympathy  and  concern  were  ac- 
tuating principles  in  the  Jesus  of  Easter- 
life.  He  knew  that  Thomas  loved  Him.  When 
He  had  expressed  His  intention  of  going  to 
Jerusalem — a  course  which  might  expose 
Him  to  death — had  not  Thomas  declared  his 
readiness  to  stand  by  Him,  even  at  the  cost 
of  life,  and  said  to  his  felloM^-disciples,  "Let 
us  also  go,  that  we  may  die  with  Him'"^. 
Jesus  knew,  also,  how  difficult  it  was  for 
Thomas  to  grasp  the  truths  of  the  Spiritual. 
Had  he  not  said,  "Lord,  we  know  not 
whither  Thou  goest,  and  how  know  we  the 
way?" 

184 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

Jesus,  moreover,  knew  that  Thomas'  doubt 
was  of  such  a  character  that  only  a  special 
manifestation  of  Himself  would  sweep  it 
away.  Well!  we  know  what  the  Master  did 
in  order  to  enlighten  Thomas  as  to  spiritual 
possibilities,  and  convince  him  that  the  state- 
ments he  had  heard  were  true.  Jesus  mani- 
fested Himself  in  "another  form" ;  in  a  forai 
such  as  He  was  not  when  He  appeared  to 
Mary  at  the  sepulchre,  or  to  the  two  men  as 
they  journeyed  to  Emmaus.  Have  we  not  in 
this  instance  of  Jesus'  adaptation  of  Him- 
self to  meet  the  requirements  of  this  man's 
mental  disposition — a  proof  that  in  the  Jesus 
Who  stood  before  Thomas  in  that  upper- 
room,  there  still  dwelt  the  unimpaired  prin- 
ciples of  Sympathy  and  concernf ulness  ? 

(d)     The  retention  of  Sequential  TJiought. 

Let  us  clearly  define  what  we  mean  by  this 
phrase.  By  Sequential  Thought  we  mean 
that  power  which  is  possessed  by  the  Self  of 
connecting  the  thoughts  which  are  held  in  the 
present  with  the  thoughts  which  have  been 
held  in  the  past;  whereby  a  mental  line  of 
succession  is  established,  and  the  continuity 
of  Individuality  is  maintained.  Sequential 
Thought  is  that  by  which  the  Individuality 
that  is  can  be  identified  with  the  Individual- 

135 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ity  that  has  been.  Without  such  thought,  I 
might  be  able  to  say,  "I  am  /" ;  but  I  should 
not  be  able  to  say,  ''I  am  the  /  who  was, 
forty  or  sixty  years  before."  We  can  illus- 
trate this  truth  in  the  case  of  any  one  now 
living  on  earth.  Here  is  a  person,  we  will 
suppose,  of  fifty  years  of  age.  He  is  quite 
sure  of  his  Individuality.  He  has  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  Self,  as  distinct  from  all 
other  Selves  that  may  exist.  Further,  he 
knows  that  this  sense  of  Individuality  owes 
its  existence  to  his  mind,  and  not  to  his  phys- 
ical organisation.  He  is  aware  that  his  phys- 
ical body,  in  the  course  of  his  life,  has  been 
wholly  disintegrated  and  re-built  at  least 
seven  or  eight  times.  Yet  he  is  absolutely 
sure  that  throughout  these  demolitions  and 
up-buildings,  his  Individuality  has  remained 
intact.  He  is  positive  that  his  Self  has  per- 
sisted through  all  these  physical  changes.  He 
can  easily  prove  that  this  is  so.  He  tells  you 
of  something  which  happened  to  him  when  he 
was  a  boy ;  and  all  the  argument  in  the  world 
would  never  convince  him  that  the  Individual 
who  narrates  the  circumstance  is  not  the  In- 
dividual who  experienced  it  forty  years  be- 
fore. But  whence  comes  this  unshakable  con- 
viction that  the  Self  of  ten  is  the  same  Self  at 

136 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

fifty?  From  the  Sequential  character  of 
Thought.  The  thoughts  held  in  the  past  were 
merged  into  the  thoughts  of  succeeding 
years;  and  so  the  thoughts  held  to-day  are 
linked  up  with  the  thoughts  held  before,  and 
thus  constitute  the  foundation  upon  which 
the  sense  of  maintained  Individuality  rests. 
If  it  were  possible,  at  physical  death,  or  at 
any  other  point  of  time,  to  obliterate  from  a 
Mind  all  the  thoughts  connected  with  the 
past,  and  to  make  that  Mind  a  blank,  of 
course,  all  sense  of  Individuality  would  dis- 
appear. And  if  that  Mind  so  denuded  were 
to  have  a  neiv  set  of  thoughts  imported  into 
it,  which  thoughts  were  unconnected  with 
those  which  had  been  obliterated.  Individual- 
ity might  again  be  created;  but  it  would  be 
an  Individuality  in  no  way  related  to  the 
Self  that  had  been.  A  wholly  new  Self  would 
come  into  being.  Thus,  it  becomes  impossible 
for  anyone  who  accepts  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  and  believes  in  the  continuance  of  the 
Self  after  death,  to  account  as  true  the  state- 
ment of  the  Psalmist,  that  when  man's 
"breath  goeth  forth  ...  in  that  very  day 
Jiis  thoughts  perish."    (Ps.  cxlvi.  4). 

There  is  a  question  which  ever  presses  it- 
self upon  us  in  view  of  dying,  and  in  view  of 
137 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  departure  from  this  life  of  dear  ones.  It 
is  this.  Shall  we,  do  they,  dissociated  from 
the  earthly  body,  retain  Sequential  Thought  ? 
Does  the  surviving  Self,  however  enhanced 
the  powers  of  its  Mind  and  enlarged  its  con- 
ceptions, think  in  such  a  way  that  its 
thoughts  are  detached  from  and  unrelated  to 
the  thoughts  which  had  been  held  in  the  past  ? 
Or,  do  the  thoughts  held  in  earth-life  com- 
mingle wdth  and  colour  the  newer  and  fuller 
thoughts  which  may  arise!  Unless  this  lat- 
ter question  can  be  answered  affirmatively, 
Death  must  be  viewed  by  us  in  the  light  of  a 
calamity.  We  shudder  at  the  thought  of  our 
sense  of  Individuality  becoming  lost  or  weak- 
ened. But  what  sort  of  Individuality  can  one 
imagine,  apart  from  the  inter-linking  of  pres- 
ent thought  with  past  thought?  Try  to  sup- 
pose such  a  case.  You  hold  in  your  mind  a 
crowd  of  good  thoughts.  They  came  into  ex- 
istence because  of  your  contact  with  others. 
"Without  that  contact,  those  thoughts  would 
not  have  been  held  by  you.  A  mother,  a  Avife, 
a  sweetheart,  a  friend,  caused  you  to  think 
the  thoughts  of  Love.  That  Love  is  a  con- 
stituent of  your  Individuality.  Your  contact 
with  distressed  and  sorrowful  ones  caused 
you  to  think  the  thoughts  of  Pity  and  Sym- 

138 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

pathy.  Those  qualities,  too,  are  constituents 
of  your  Individuality.  You  are  loving,  piti- 
ful and  sympathetic,  simply  because  those 
qualities  are  the  outcome  of  your  thinking 
about  those  you  could  love,  and  those  for 
whom  you  could  feel  pity  and  sympathy.  If 
when  the  consciousness  of  your  Selfhood 
first  dawned  upon  you,  you  had  been  shut  off 
from  all  contact  with  your  fellows,  and  your 
mind  had  had  no  thoughts  connected  with  a 
past  to  fall  back  upon — do  you  suppose  that 
Love,  Pity  and  Sympathy  would  have  had 
any  place  in  your  being?  And  more — do  you 
think  that  your  Individuality — essentially  the 
outcome  of  Mind — could  have  been  anything 
but  an  attenuated  thing?  Now,  suppose  it 
were  true  that  in  going  hence  our  "thoughts 
perish."  What  an  outlook  of  depression  for 
the  dying  one,  or  for  the  mourner !  To  start 
a  new  mental  existence  with  the  mind  as  a 
blank  in  regard  to  the  past!  For  there  to 
be  no  gathering  up  into  the  thoughts  of  Spir- 
it-life the  thoughts  which  had  been  held  in 
earth-life !  Not  to  recall  the  ones  and  the  cir- 
cumstances that  had  induced  in  us  activity  of 
Thought !  To  find  nothing  in  our  mental  con- 
stitution which  is  linked  up  inseparably  with 
the  memory  of  parent,  wife,  child  and  friend, 
139 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

and  what  they  said  and  did,  and  were  to  us ! 
Picture,  if  you  can,  a  Self  in  Other  Life,  in 
whom  Sequential  thought  does  not  exist.  You 
meet  such  an  one  as  you  pass  into  that  Life. 
A  thousand  and  one  ties  and  associations 
knitted  you  together  in  previous  life.  The 
sight  of  him  recalls  these  to  you.  It  is  your 
boy.  Mother,  who  gave  up  his  young  life  on 
the  awful  battle-field.  Once  he  lay  in  your 
bosom.  You  taught  him  about  God  and 
Christ.  He  used  to  say  his  prayers  at  your 
knee.  He  always  loved  you,  thought  of  you, 
worried  about  you.  That  letter  found  in  his 
blood-stained  tunic,  and  sent  to  you,  told  you 
that  his  latest  earthly  thoughts  were  of  you. 
That  was  years  ago,  but  there  is  no  break  in 
the  chain  of  your  loving  thoughts  of  him. 
You  have  always  prayed  for  him,  in  spite  of 
all  that  a  cold,  cheerless  and  loveless  "the- 
ology" said  to  the  contrary.  How  beautiful 
he  looks  in  his  "soul's  expansion"!  "Speak 
to  him,"  whispers  one  who  has  crossed  the 
Frontier-Line  with  you,  "it  is  your  spirit- 
boy!"  Your  words  pour  forth  your  pent-up 
thoughts  of  the  past.  You  lift  your  eyes  to 
his,  and  oh !  you  realise  in  the  look  that  meets 
yours,  that  that  Spiritual  Mind  is  one  which 
stands  detached  from  all  that  went  before! 

140 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

How,  think  you,  would  you  feel,  if  such  a 
thing  as  this  were  a  possibility?  Be  honest 
in  spite  of  shocking  the  "orthodox"  notions 
of  some.  What  can  best  comfort  you  as  you 
lie  upon  a  bed  of  death?  The  expectation  of 
the  vision  of  a  heavenly  Jerusalem,  with  its 
golden  streets,  and  of  harping  angels  and 
glorified  saints?  Or  the  expectation  which 
arises  from  that  inherent  power  of  our  Self 
— to  think  again  as  we  have  thought?  To  be 
able  to  look  into  the  spiritual  eyes,  to  grasp 
the  hand,  and  to  hold  in  a  still-loving  em- 
brace those  dear  ones  we  knew  in  earth-life ; 
and  to  be  able  to  talk  over  with  them  all  that 
created,  maintained  and  fixed  the  spiritual 
affinity  between  us  and  them. 

Some  Reader  may,  perhaps,  say,  ''But  you 
have  only  been  dealing  with  Sequential 
Thought  as  it  bears  upon  good  thinking. 
There  is  the  had  thinking.  Will  that  be  re- 
membered in  Spirit-life?  If  so,  would  it  not 
be  a  disadvantage,  and  even  a  hindrance,  to 
a  repentant  Self,  moving  on  to  better  con- 
dition?" No,  I  think  not.  What  if  the  mov- 
ing power  oiContrast  were  an  uplifting  force 
with  us  there,  as  it  is  with  us  here?  Many  a 
drunkard  is  brought  to  sobriety  by  linking 
his  past  thoughts  of  the  disaster  which  his 
141 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

drunkenness  brought  to  him,  with  his  awak- 
ened thoughts  of  better  possibilities.  The 
very  contrast,  in  his  case,  between  how  he 
thought  in  the  past,  and  how  he  thinks  now, 
becomes  an  uplifting  principle  to  him.  May 
we  not  think  the  same  in  regard  to  a  Self  in 
After-Life?  I  can  believe  that  when  a  Self, 
after  death,  moves  on,  under  Divine  judgment 
and  discipline,  to  better  thought  and  life,  the 
very  remembrance  of  wrong  thinking  and  do- 
ing may  serve  as  a  mighty  spur  to  the  devel- 
opment of  the  soul.  In  I  Peter  iii.  18  to  20, 
and  iv.  6,  is  an  Apostolic  statement  which,  in 
spite  of  all  the  theological  ingenuity  that  has 
been  expended  to  explain  away  its  meaning, 
is  very  illuminative.  In  these  passages,  St. 
Peter  declares  that  Jesus  when  out  of  His 
physical  Body  preached  "the  Gospel"  to 
once  disobedient  ones,  in  order  that  they 
might  "live  according  to  God  in  the  spirit- 
life."  They  were  the  old-world  sinners  who 
perished  in  the  Flood.  At  the  time  when  the 
pitiful  Saviour  preached  to  them,  they  were 
no  longer  in  a  condition  of  disobedience. 
Must  we  not  think  that  their  power  of  re- 
viewing the  past,  with  all  its  sin,  failure  and 
physical  and  moral  ruin,  was  the  very  means, 
in  the  manipulative  hands  of  God,  whereby 
142 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

higher  thoughts  and  saving  possibilities  were 
opened  up  for  them?  But  it  is  facts,  rather 
than  suppositions,  we  ask  for  to  assure  us 
that  the  Self  in  After-life  possesses  the  pow- 
er of  Sequential  Thought.  Are  those  facts 
forthcoming  ?  Yes.  There  are,  first,  the  facts 
which  rest  on  our  Lord's  teaching  and  dem- 
onstration on  this  point.  These  ought  to 
be  authoritative  to  all  "who  profess  and 
call  themselves  Christians."  Next,  there  are 
those  facts,  the  knowledge  of  which  has  come 
to  us,  during  the  past  forty  or  fifty  years, 
as  the  result  of  the  patient  investigation  of 
Psychic  Phenomena.  It  is  about  this  latter 
class  of  facts  that  I  would  first  say  a  word 
or  two.  It  is  impossible,  within  the  compass 
of  this  little  work  for  me  to  enlarge  upon 
them,  as  I  would.  Every  Christian  Reader, 
who  is  abreast  of  present-day  knowledge,  and 
has  not  shut  himself  up  to  think  only  on  the 
lines  of  traditional  thought,  knows  perfectly 
well  that  manl^ind  holds  at  this  time,  more 
particularly  than  at  any  previous  time,  a 
mass  of  evidence  which  is  of  incalculable 
worth  in  enlightening  us  as  to  the  condition 
of  the  Self  after  death.  From  distinguished 
men  of  Science  of  this  age,  and  from  thou- 
sands of  others  now  living,  this  evidence  is 
143 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

forthcoming.  To  what  does  it  bear  witness  I 
That  discarnate  ones  can,  and  do,  establish 
at  times  communications  between  the  Spirit- 
world  and  this  world ;  and  have  demonstrated 
that  the  thoughts  held  after  death  are  in 
sequence  and  close  relationship  with  the 
thoughts  held  before  death. 

In  the  course  of  the  past  twenty  years,  a 
great  number  of  remarkable  instances  of  this 
have  come  within  my  own  experience.  I 
will  recount  one  of  a  purely  personal  charac- 
ter. A  few  years  ago,  I  stood  many  times 
at  the  death-bed  of  a  good-living  and  relig- 
ious relative.  He  w^as  a  kindly,  tender-hearted 
man;  but  his  religious  thought  was  over- 
shadowed by  the  awful  teaching  of  everlast- 
ing perdition  for  the  many,  and  salvation 
only  for  the  few.  Fortunately,  that  blas- 
phemous slander  on  God  did  not  bring  him  to 
the  mad-house,  as  it  brought  three  other  good 
Christians  I  have  known;  but  it  invested  his 
death-bed  with  horror  to  himself  and  to  me. 
As  I  stood  beside  him  in  his  dying  hours, 
again  and  again  he  said,  "Oh!  I  am  a  lost 
soul:  God  has  rejected  me.  Hell — ^^everlast- 
ing  Hell!"  And  then  I  think  I  w^ondered 
what  would  be  God's  judgment  on  the  mis- 
translators  of  Bible-texts,  and  on  any  Church 

144 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

who  had  endorsed  the  blasphemy  on  Divine 
Love,  in  order  to  suit  the  perverted  theolog- 
ical notions  of  a  Tertullian,  an  Augustine  and 
a  Calvin.  I  told  that  dying  one  that  God  is 
Love,  and  prayed  the  thought  with  him  again 
and  again.  He  gave  me  no  sign  before  he 
passed  hence  that  his  mind  had  freed  itself 
from  the  baneful  influence  of  the  men  whom 
I  have  mentioned.  ''God  is  Love,  and  He 
loves  and  wants  you,"  were  my  last  words  to 
Him.  He  smiled  sadly,  but  incredulously. 
Well,  here  is  the  sequel.  I  had  not  mentioned 
the  circumstance  connected  with  the  death- 
bed to  any  one.  It  seemed  too  painful  a  sub- 
ject to  talk  about.  A  year  or  more  later,  an- 
other near  relative  of  mine  was  visiting  an 
elderly  ladj^-friend,  who  was  clairvoyant.  I 
have  never  met  tliis  latter,  and  the  relative 
who  died  was  unknown  to  both  this  one  and 
her  visitor.  Suddenly,  the  clairvoyant  lady 
said  to  her  visitor,  "There  is  a  spiritual 
presence  beside  you.  I  see  him  but  do  not 
know  who  he  is.  I  gather  that  he  wishes  to 
say  something  to  you."  And  then  the  mes- 
sage came,  "Will  you  tell  A (myself) 

that  I  know  the  truth  now,  and  that  he  was 

quite   right  when  he  told  me  that   God  is 

Love."  I  will  only  add  that,  in  this  case,  no 

145 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

hypothesis  of  Telepathy  will  explain  it.  The 
message  received  was  unintelligible  to  the  re- 
ceiver, until  subsequently  recounted  to  me, 
and  I  explained  its  significance.  To  me,  it 
amounts  to  a  proof — among  thousands  of 
similar  experiences — that  the  Self  in  Spirit- 
life  carries  with  it  Sequential  Thought. 

But  the  point  I  am  specially  considering  in 
this  little  work,  is — Did  our  Lord  teach  and 
demonstrate  this  truth?  Yes.  As  far  as  I  am 
capable  of  judging,  everything  He  said  and 
did  after  death,  confirms  the  conclusion ;  and 
this  is  supported  by  an  ever-accmnulating 
weight  of  evidence.  His  teaching  very  clear- 
ly implies  it.  In  His  illuminative  parable  of 
the  Rich  man  and  Lazarus,  was  it  not  Se- 
quential Thought — past  thought  connecting 
itself  wdth  after  thought — which  caused  Dives 
to  request  that  Lazarus  might  be  sent  to  his 
five  brethren  ?  Take  any  of  our  Lord 's  decla- 
rations as  to  Selves  in  After-Life,  in  view  of 
future  judgment.  Do  they  not  presuppose 
that  the  thoughts  held  in  earth-life,  together 
with  the  deeds  resultant  from  thinking,  will 
be  inseparably  connected  with  the  mental  ex- 
periences of  discarnate  life?  There  could  be 
no  justice  in  punishment  or  reward  if  this 
Avere  not  so.  In  the  parable  of  the  Sheep  and 
146 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

the  Goats,  neither  class  is  shown  to  pass  into 
subsequent  experience  without  knowing  the 
reason  tvhy.  In  both  cases,  earth-life 
thoughts  and  actions  are  placed  in  review 
before  the  ones  undergoing  judgment;  and 
Sequential  Thought  is  held  by  the  mind  of 
the  Goats  who  '*go  away  into  seonial  pru- 
ning (eE?  xdXaatv  atwvtov),  and  by  the  mind  of 
the  Sheep  who  go  into  '' seonial  life."  (I;(ot)v 
atwviov,  Matt.  XXV.  46).  Did  our  Lord,  after 
death,  demonstrate  this  truth?  Did  He  show 
that  the  thoughts  He  held  in  spirit-life  were 
vitally  connected  with  the  thoughts  He  had 
previously  held  in  His  earth-life?  The  brief 
Gospel  records  concerning  the  Forty-days 
emphatically  declare  that  this  was  so.  In  His 
first  manifestation  of  Himself,  He  addressed 
Mary  by  name.  He  selected  Peter  as  the  first 
of  the  men  who  should  see  Him  on  Easter- 
day.  He  greeted  the  women  on  the  way  to 
Jeiiisalem  in  the  same  way  as  He  had  so 
often  before  spoken  to  troubled  and  sorrow- 
ing ones.  He  unfolded  Divine  truth  to  the 
two  men  journeying  to  Emmaus,  as  He  had 
been  wont  to  do  when  in  earth-life.  His 
** Peace  be  unto  you"  to  the  Apostles  in  the 
upper-rooim  was  the  same  blessing  which 
they  had  heard  from  His  lips  many  times  be- 

147 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

fore.  His  thrice-repeated  question  to  Peter, 
"Lovest  thou  Mel"  was  but  the  gentle  re- 
minder to  that  man  that  death  had  not  oblit- 
erated the  Master's  recollection  of  his  un- 
faithfulness, or  extinguished  His  old  love  for 
him.  All  these  incidents  show  that  the  Son  of 
Man  in  spirit-life  stood  with  a  mind  in  which 
were  linked  up  the  thoughts  of  the  past. 

And  in  that  Son  of  Man  lies  the  pledge  of 
that  which  we  all  want  to  know,  viz.,  that 
Sequential  Thought  is  retained  by  the  Self, 
as  freed  from  the  limitations  of  the  Physical 
it  moves  on  to  the  ever-extending  possibili- 
ties of  the  Spiritual. 

IV.  That  in  After-Life  the  Self,  bodily, 
mentally  and  spiritually  advances. 

The  full  teaching  of  Christ's  Religion  can 
not  be  grasped  by  us,  until  we  are  able  to 
think  of  the  Self  after  death  as  progressing. 
In  what  way  must  we  picture  dear  ones  who 
have  gone  into  Other-Life,  in  order  to  illu- 
mine the  dark  cloud  of  bereavement  with  com- 
fort and  hope?  Are  we  to  think  of  them  as 
being,  mentally  and  spiritually,  as  they  were 
when  we  placed  their  body  in  the  grave  ?  Or 
are  we  to  think  of  them  as  ones  who  are  out- 
wardly and  inwardly  advancing?  The  beau- 
148 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

tiful  words  of  Longfellow  exactly  voice  our 
highest  thoughts  on  this  point. 

Not  as  a  child  shall  we  again  behold  her; 

For  when  with  raptures  wild 
In  our  embraces  we  again  enfold  her, 

She  will  not  be  a  child 
But  a  fair  maiden  in  her  Father's  mansion, 

Clothed  with  celestial  grace; 
And  beautiful  with  all  the  soul's  expansion 

Shall  we  behold  her  face. 

But  many  Christians  have  viewed  askance 
the  thought  that  a  Self  can  progress  after 
death.  They  have  supposed  that,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  physical  death,  the  spiritual  condi- 
tion becomes  unalterably  fixed,  and  that  the 
state  of  the  Self  is  then — as  it  were — stereo- 
typed for  eternity;  that  the  Self  does  noth- 
ing, and  acquires  nothing;  that  the  After- 
Life  is  a  sort  of  ante-chamber  of  final  des- 
tiny, in  which  souls,  remaining  in  the  condi- 
tion reached  at  death,  must  expectantly,  or 
tremblingly,  await  unending  bliss,  or  hope- 
less perdition.  The  Gospel  teaching  is  set 
aside,  and  the  words  in  Eccles.  xi.  3,  "In  the 
place  where  the  tree  falleth,  there  shall  it 
be,"  are  supposed  once  and  for  all  to  settle 
the  point.  That  view  is  not  in  accordance 
with  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
149 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

is  opposed  to  every  scrap  of  knowledge  we 
possess  as  to  the  method  of  Divine  working. 
Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  so  many  bereaved 
ones,  who  have  been  schooled  in  such  ideas, 
find  that  Religion  fails  them  at  a  time  when 
they  most  need  its  comfort!  With  no  belief 
in  mental  and  spiritual  progress  after  death, 
there  will  be  no  prayer  for  the  departed  one ; 
while  even  to  mention  the  name  of  that  one 
to  God  will  be  viewed  as  theologically  ques- 
tionable. Well,  what  is  the  consequence?  The 
ones  w^e  so  loved,  and  w^ho  before  going  hence 
were  so  interwoven  with  our  life  and  Relig- 
ion, afterwards  seem  to  be  dismally  disso- 
ciated from  us  and  it;  and  the  mourning 
garb  we  don  becomes  the  suitable  symbol  of 
an  unsatisfying  creed. 

The  spiritual  body  of  the  Self  experiences 
advancement  in  After-Life. 

The  spiritual  Body  of  our  Lord,  Who  "in 
all  things  was  made  like  unto  His  brethren," 
underwent  this  experience.  The  spiritual 
Body  in  which  He  was  at  Easter-time  be- 
came a  grander  and  more  glorious  Body. 
AVhy  were  those  frequent  Easter  manifesta- 
tions of  Himself  limited  to  the  forty  days? 
I  venture  to  think  that  it  was  because,  at  the 
end  of  that  period,  His  spiritual  Body  had 

150 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

so  marvellously  advanced,  and  had  so  quickly 
assumed  the  highest  phases  of  spiritual  de- 
velopment, that  it  became  impossible  to  those 
in  the  flesh  to  receive  the  manifestations  of 
Him  as  they  had  done.  During  those  six 
weeks,  Jesus  had  been  seen  through  the  me- 
diumship  of  physical  vision.  He  was  seen 
afterwards,  but  in  quite  a  different  present- 
ment. After  that  Easter  period,  our  Lord's 
Body  had  become  so  spiritually  refined,  and 
so  lifted  above  the  conditionings  of  the  Ma- 
terial, that  it  became  impossible  for  Its  vi- 
brations, by  which  It  could  be  made  visible, 
to  be  registered  by  merely  physical  eyes. 
Science  teaches  us  that  there  exist  many 
things  of  which  unaided  physical  vision 
gives  us  no  knowledge.  But,  assuredly,  some 
marked  and  important  change  had  taken 
place  in  the  Spiritual  Body  of  Jesus,  before 
the  forty  days  had  quite  expired;  or  how 
came  it  about  that  when  the  eleven  disciples 
met  Him  on  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  "They 
saw  Him;  they  worshipped  Him;  but  some 
doubted' "I  Why  in  doubt  about  Him?  They 
had  frequently  seen  Him  since  Easter-Day. 
Does  it  not  point  to  some  great  change  as 
taking  place  in  connection  with  His  Person? 
After  Ascension-tide,  Jesus  still  continued 
151 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

to  manifest  Himself  to  dwellers  upon  earth. 
But  by  that  time  His  Spiritual  Body  had  un- 
dergone a  marvelous  progressior.  In  His 
manifestations  at  the  martyrdom  of  St. 
Stephen,  on  Saul's  journey  to  Damascus,  and 
to  St.  John  at  Patmos,  it  was  no  longer  a 
Jesus  in  appearance  like  a  gardener,  a  way- 
farer, a  crucified  One,  or  one  of  whose  iden- 
tity there  could  be  any  doubt.  Christ,  in  re- 
spect to  the  spiritual  Enwrapment  of  His 
Self  had  gloriously  advanced.  It  was  with 
this  concept  of  Him  that  the  Apostles  went 
forth  to  the  world  and  preached,  "Jesus  and 
the  Anastasis  (Advancement)"  (Acts  xvii. 
18).  But,  further,  it  may  be  asked — Does  the 
New  Testament  record  instances  of  others 
than  our  Lord,  as  experiencing  advance  of 
the  Spiritual  body  after  leaving  earth-life? 
Yes.  St.  Luke,  in  recounting  the  incident  of 
the  Transfiguration,  states,  "Behold,  there 
talked  with  Him  two  men  (i.  e.,  beings  in 
bodily-form),  which  were  Moses  and  Elijah; 
who  appeared  in  glory"  (Luke  ix.  30). 
Again,  the  spiritual  being  who  came  to  St. 
John  at  Patmos  declared  himself  to  be  a 
"fellow-servant"  with  the  Apostle  and  his 
brethren;  and  yet  this  former  co-worker  with 
him  had  so  progressed  in  spirit-life  that  St. 
152 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

John  regarded  him  as  an  angel,  and  would 
have  worshipped  him  (see  Rev.  xxii.  8  and 
9).  Moreover,  the  New  Testament  explicitly 
states  that  there  is  this  advance  of  the  spir- 
itual body  of  the  Self. 

St.  John  writes  (I  John  iii.  2),  ''It  is  not 
yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  We 
know  that  if  it  shall  be  manifested,  ive  shall 
be  like  Him;  for  we  shall  see  Him  even  as 
He  is.''  St.  Paul  writes  (Phil.  iii.  21),  "Who 
(Christ)  shall  change  the  form  of  the  body  of 
our  humiliation,  that  it  may  be  conformed  to 
the  body  of  His  glory."  Instead,  then,  of  the 
notion  of  an  unprogressive,  bodiless  Self 
after  death,  which  must  indefinitely  await  the 
re-enkindling  and  rehabilitation  of  mortality 
to  bring  it  into  personality  and  bodily  like- 
ness to  Christ,  the  Gospel  records  teach  us 
that  the  casting  off  of  the  physical  body  does 
but  make  way  for  the  expansion  of  the  spir- 
itual body,  and  that,  as  the  discarnate  Self 
moves  on  to  higher  attainments,  the  spiritual 
encasement  of  that  Self  moves  on  also ;  until 
it  reaches  the  great  Advancement — the  Anas- 
tasis,  and  becomes  like  unto  the  Saviour  in 
"the  body  of  His  glory,"  An  interesting 
fact  may  be  noted  here.  In  the  great  many 
recorded    instances    of    appearances    after 

153 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

death,  the  manifestations  have  continued  for 
a  considerable  time,  and  then  have  wholly- 
ceased.  If  space  allowed,  I  could  add  to  the 
great  amount  of  testimony  which  has  been 
borne  as  to  this.  "Why  is  it  so  ?  May  it  not  be 
that,  as  departed  ones  advance  in  spirit-life, 
the  spiritual  body  becomes  so  sublimated  and 
uplifted  from  the  plane  of  the  Material,  that 
it  is  no  longer  able  to  make  itself  visible  to 
physical  eyes,  and  to  maintain  a  rapport  with 
the  Physical?  Those  spiritual  presences  may 
still  be  seen  by  those  in  the  flesh,  viz.,  by  a 
quickening  of  the  faculties  of  the  interior 
spirit-body  of  the  perceiver.  As  everyone 
knows  w^ho  has  investigated  the  subject,  the 
departed  are  being  constantly  seen.  In  spite 
of  all  the  incredulity  of  religious  teachers  as 
to  spiritual  verities,  the  experiences  of  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  to-day  are  like  the 
experiences  of  those  who  lived  in  Bible  times. 
The  physical  eyes  of  Balaam  failed  to  regis- 
ter the  presence  of  an  angel,  and  the  physical 
eyes  of  the  servant  of  Elisha  failed  to  regis- 
ter the  presence  of  the  spiritual  host  who  pro- 
tected the  prophet.  But  both  the  angel  and 
the  host  were  perceived,  when  the  eyes  of  the 
spirit-body  of  Balaam  and  the  young  man 
had  been  ''opened."     Moreover,  there  is  a 

154 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

contact  and  communion  between  those  who 
have  gone  hence  and  ns,  which  transcends 
both  physical  and  clairvoyant  vision.  The 
advancing  Self  in  spirit-life  has  the  power  of 
transmitting  mental  and  spiritual  impulses 
which  can  be  consciously  received  by  us  here. 
This  world  and  the  Spirit  World  are  linked 
by  Telepathy.  The  scientific  testimony  con- 
cerning this  fact  is  ever  accumulating,  and 
I  could  give  a  great  number  of  remarkable 
instances  of  it  in  regard  to  others  and  myself. 
It  constitutes  one  of  the  great  proofs  of  con- 
tinued life  after  death. 

There  is  oriental  and  spiritual  advancement 
of  the  Self  in  After  Life. 

Without  such  advancement  there  could  be 
no  development  and  perfecting  of  the  spirit- 
ual body.  The  form  through  which  the  dis- 
carnate  Self  is  expressed  stands  in  corre- 
spondence with  the  mental  and  spiritual  con- 
dition of  the  Self.  Mind  and  Spirit  are  shap- 
ing powers.  Mental  and  spiritual  conditions 
are  registered  on  the  plastic  spiritual  encase- 
ment. A  spirit-body  may  be  beautiful  or 
ugly,  developed  or  undeveloped,  attractive  or 
repellent,  or  at  any  stage  intermediate  be- 
tween these  opposites,  according  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  Self.  This  principle  even  obtains 

155 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

in  regard  to  our  earthly  body.  The  character 
of  a  man,  cruel,  selfish,  bad-tempered  and  un- 
loving, will  be  marked  upon  his  face.  If,  by 
the  grace  of  God,  the  same  man  becomes 
kindly,  unselfish  and  sympathetic,  his  face, 
after  a  while,  will  give  indications  of  the  in- 
ward change  which  has  taken  place :  the  phys- 
ical organization  can  receive  the  impress  of 
the  mind.  The  principle  becomes  more  in- 
tensely operative  in  regard  to  the  Spiritual 
body  of  the  Self.  In  Other  Life,  what  the  Self 
is  will  be  shown  on  the  sensitive-plate  of  his 
spiritual  enwrapment.  This  is  a  truth  which 
is  of  vital  concern  to  us.  It  makes  the  cultiva- 
tion of  character  of  enormous  importance. 
Even  many  Christians  are  but  little  concern- 
ed that  bad-temper,  irritability,  selfishness 
and  other  defects  lurk  in  their  moral  system. 
They  have  the  idea  that,  because  of  what  they 
believe,  death  will  effectually  rid  them  of 
these  evils  and  imperfections.  It  will  make 
us  earnest  in  developing  the  Christ-like  qual- 
ities, if  we  believe  that  it  is  not  so ;  that  the 
mental  and  spiritual  condition  of  the  Self  is 
neither  brought  about,  nor  interrupted,  by 
the  act  of  dying;  and  that  every  advance 
made  by  our  spirit  in  this  life,  is  a  step  for- 

156 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ward  to  fashioning  us  into  outward  and  in- 
ward likeness  to  Christ. 

And  does  not  this  truth  concerning  the 
mental  and  spiritual  advancement  of  the  Self 
invest  the  Other  Life  with  enhanced  interest 
to  us?  It  enables  us  to  think  of  it  so  differ- 
ently. It  becomes  to  us  less  of  a  theological 
conception,  and  more  of  a  reality.  We  get  rid 
of  the  depressing  idea  that  at  death  the  Self 
stops  short  in  developing-activity.  There  is 
that  which  chills  us  in  the  thought  that  we 
must  leave  a  life  of  improvement,  activity 
and  ministry  to  others,  to  pass  into  a  condi- 
tion whose  characteristic — according  to  a 
very  common  representation — is  only  a  wait- 
ing for  a  future.  And,  surely,  to  every  be- 
reaved one,  there  is  intense  comfort  in  the 
truth  of  which  we  are  speaking.  What  of 
those  dear  departed  ones  for  whom  we 
mourn?  What  of  those  brave  brothers  who 
by  the  fiendish  devices  of  war  have  been  pre- 
maturely hurled  into  Life  Beyond?  In  these 
latter,  as  in  the  best  of  us,  there  was  that 
which  denoted  the  existence  of  sin  and  imper- 
fection, as  well  as  of  good.  Not  one  of  those, 
whose  poor,  mangled  bodies  lie  in  nameless 
graves,  had  reached  mental  and  spiritual  ex- 
cellence. Many  a  rung  of  the  ladder  of  ascen- 
167 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

sion  will  have  to  be  trodden  by  them,  as  by 
us,  before  that  prophecy  of  Jesus  shall  be  ful- 
filled, ''Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect"  (Matt.  v.  48). 
Those  men  who  laid  down  their  life  on  the 
battle-field  made  a  bigger  sacrifice  for  the 
sake  of  others  than  ever  you  or  I  have  made. 
In  their  death,  they  exhibited  the  Christ- 
spirit  of  self-forgetfulness  far  better  than 
have  some  self-satisfied  ones,  who  have  made 
themselves  happy  by  the  thought  that  they 
are  ''saved,"  and  not  made  themselves  mis- 
erable by  their  belief  that  the  bulk  of  their 
fellows  will  be  everlastingly  lost.  What  of 
those  departed  ones?  Oh!  believe  me,  it  will 
make  a  tremendous  difference  to  our  trust  in 
God  and  our  hope  in  Christ  as  the  Saviour 
of  the  world,  whether  we  think  of  those  gone 
hence  as  the  Selves  who,  by  the  love  of  God, 
and  even  by  His  disciplinings,  are  moving  on 
to  mental  and  spiritual  advancement;  or 
whether  we  think  of  them  on  the  lines  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  of  a  hymn,  as  they  once 
stood  in  a  popular  Church  hymn-book : 

As  the  tree  falls,  so  must  it  lie; 
As  the  man  lives,  so  will  he  die; 
As  the  man  dies,  such  must  he  be 
All  through  the  days  of  eternity. 

'■!.;.  158 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

The  one  belief  illumines  the  dark  cloud  of 
bereavement  with  the  magnificent  rainbow  of 
Hope;  the  other  belief  leaves  that  cloud  in 
the  still  darker  shadows  of  the  mental  night- 
time of  disappointment,  and  despair. 

Do  the  Gospel  records  assure  us  of  the 
mental  and  spiritual  advancement  of  the  Self 
in  After-Life?  We  place,  first,  the  state- 
ments of  our  Lord.  In  quoting  the  words  of 
Isaiah,  and  applying  them  to  Himself,  He 
said,  "A  bruised  reed  shall  He  not  break,  and 
smoking-flax  shall  He  not  quench,  till  He  send 
forth  judgment  unto  victory"  (Matt.  xii. 
20).  In  what  condition  are  the  vast  majority 
when  they  depart  this  life  ?  Surely,  no  words 
could  better  describe  their  spiritual  state 
than,  "bruised  reeds  and  smoking  flax.'' 
That  condition,  then,  can  only  be  bettered  by 
advancement  in  the  Other  World.  Then, 
Christ's  "sending  forth  judgment  unto  vic- 
tory." What  victory?  There  can  be  but  one 
kind  of  victory  for  Him  Who  "came  not  to 
destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them" — a 
victory  for  Goodness;  whereby  even  the 
judgments  of  the  After-Life  on  sin,  however 
searching  and  severe,  are  not  to  ruin,  but  re- 
store. This  declared  purpose  of  judgment, 
then,  implies  advancement  in  the  Life  Be- 

159 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

yond.  Further,  take  that  promise  of  Jesus 
made  to  His  disciples,  "When  the  Spirit  of 
truth  is  come,  he  shall  guide  you  into  all 
truth"  (John  xvi.  13).  The  fulfilment  of  that 
promise  involves  the  mental  advance  of  the 
Self  after  death.  The  Apostles  had  received 
the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  they 
were  not  the  possessors  of  all  truth  when 
they  left  this  life.  St.  Paul,  even  in  the  light 
of  his  unique  knowledge  of  spiritual  realities 
(see  2  Cor.  xii.  2  to  4),  wrote,  "Now  we  see 
in  a  mirror  darkly;  but  then  face  to  face: 
now  I  know  in  part;  but  then  shall  I  know 
even  as  also  I  have  been  known"  (1  Cor.  xiii. 
12).  This  statement  of  the  Apostle  indicates 
that  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  not 
a  Power  which  will  illumine  men's  minds  only 
to  the  frontier-line  of  the  Beyond;  but  is,  in 
spirit-life,  an  indwelling  Force  which  still 
leads  them  on  to  highest  life  and  fullest  truth. 
There  are  two  facts  concerning  our  Lord 
which  confirm  the  belief  that  mental  and 
spiritual  advancement  characterises  the  Aft- 
er-Life.  The  one  relates  to  what  He,  the  Di- 
vine Revealer  of  truth,  said  when  He  hung 
upon  the  cross ;  the  other,  to  what  St.  Peter 
declared  He  did,  after  His  physical  Body  had 
died.  On  the  cross,  Jesus  told  a  thief  dying 
160 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

at  His  side  that,  on  that  same  day,  He  and 
the  thief  would  be  together  in  Paradise.  It 
was  a  magnificently  grand  statement  for  even 
the  Christ  of  Love  to  make!  That  poor, 
wretched,  undeveloped  soul,  who  had  only 
just  stopped  his  jeering  at  Jesus,  and  who, 
when  he  realized  the  fact  of  a  hereafter,  only 
said  "Remember  me/'  was  promised  a  con- 
tact with  Jesus  in  spirit-life.  But  why?  There 
can  be  but  one  answer,  unless  we  alter  our 
ideas  about  the  character  and  mission  of 
Jesus.  It  was,  by  Christ's  loving  Presence, 
to  lift  a  low-toned  Self  to  higher  thought  and 
spiritual  arising.  St.  Peter  tells  us  (I  have 
referred  to  his  statement  before),  that  Jesus, 
when  He  left  His  earthly  Body,  went  as  a 
Spiritual  Being  and  preached  the  Gospel  to 
ones  in  the  Spirit-World  who  had  at  one 
time  been  disobedient  and  suffered  the  judg- 
ment of  God.  Again,  how  magnificently  lov- 
ing of  Christ,  with  all  the  sorrowful  experi- 
ences of  His  earth-life  fresh  upon  Him,  to 
go  at  once  to  these !  Yes ;  but  every  action  of 
Jesus,  before,  at,  and  after  Death,  reveal  His 
saving-passion  for  the  souls  of  men.  But  why 
did  He  go  and  preach  to  those  "spirits  in 
keeping"!  Not  to  pronounce  sentence  of  con- 
demnation; for  they  were  no  longer  disobe- 
161 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

dient.  St.  Peter  discloses  the  reason,  ''that 
they  might  live  according  to  God  in  the  spir- 
it" (1  Pet.  iii.  18  to  20  and  iv.  6). 

Here,  then,  in  this  particular  incident,  is  a 
two-fold  testimony  to  the  truth  of  advance- 
ment after  death.  Those  who  physically  per- 
ished at  the  Flood  because  they  were  dis- 
obedient, were  no  longer  so  when  the  dis- 
carnate  Saviour  preached  to  theim;  and  He 
preached  to  them  for  the  direct  object  of 
spiritual  progress— that  they  might  "live  ac- 
cording to  God  in  the  spirit." 

Do  the  Apostolic  Writers  confirm  this 
truth?  Yes.  Take  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  in 
Phil.  i.  6.  He  writes  that  he  is  "confident  of 
this  very  thing — that  He  which  began  a  good 
work  in  you  will  perfect  it  until  the  day  of 
Jesus  Christ.  To  what  day  is  he  alluding? 
Surely,  to  that  period  when  God's  great 
"Purpose  of  the  ages,  which  He  purposed  in 
Christ  Jesus"  (Eph.  iii.  11)  shall  be  fulfilled; 
when  "the  times  of  restoration  of  all  things 
shall  come,  whereof  God  spake  by  the  mouth 
of  His  holy  prophets  which  have  been  since 
the  world  began"  (Acts  iii.  21) ;  to  that  "ful- 
ness of  the  times  when  all  things  shall  be 
summed  up  in  Christ,  the  things  in  the  heav- 
ens and  the  things  upon  the  earth"  (Eph.  i. 
162 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

10).  But  here  is  the  point — that  good  work 
begun  in  those  Philippian  Christians  is  to  go 
on  until  that  great  Day.  If  that  be  so,  it  in- 
volves progression  in  After-Life.  Take  an- 
other statement.  The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  (ch.  xii.  22  to  24)  states,  "Ye 
are  come''  to  certain  spiritual  realities,  e.  g., 
to  a  heavenly  world,  innumerable  hosts  of 
angels,  to  God,  to  Jesus,  and  to  "the  spirits 
of  just  men  made  perfect."  He  is  not  re- 
ferring to  what  shall  be,  but  what  now  is. 
"Ye  are  come."  Clearly,  this  Writer  was  re- 
ferring to  those  who  had  left  the  earth-life. 
Would  he  have  described  any  one,  however 
good,  at  the  time  of  physical  death,  as  a 
spirit  made  perfect  "i  I  think  not.  Then,  this 
statement  about  departed  ones  is  confirma- 
tory of  the  glorious  truth  of  advance  in  Aft- 
er-Life.  In  1  Cor.  iii.  15,  St.  Paul  speaks  of 
a  man's  work  being  useless,  and  of  his  suf- 
fering loss.  He  then  adds,  "But  he  himself 
shall  be  saved ;  yet  so  as  through  fire. ' '  The 
inference  is  plain.  The  abortiveness  of  a 
man's  work,  done  in  the  earth-life,  must  be 
due  to  some  moral,  mental  and  spiritual  in- 
adequacy in  the  man  himself.  If,  in  conse- 
quence, the  work  perishes,  but  the  man  him- 
self is  "saved"  by  judgment  and  discipline, 
163 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

surely,  it  implies  betterment  and  advance- 
ment in  After-experience.  There  are  a  great 
many  other  statements  in  the  Epistles  which 
demonstrate  that  the  sacred  writers  held  the 
belief  in  this  great  truth;  but  the  words  of 
our  Lord,  too  often  so  inadequately  under- 
stood in  their  fulness  of  meaning,  seem  to 
me,  more  than  aught  else,  to  make  us  confi- 
dent that  the  Life  Beyond  is  a  life  of  Pro- 
gression. Not  long  before  His  earthly  mis- 
sion was  closed,  the  Master  said,  "In  my 
Father's  house  are  many  tarrying-places 
(tioval);  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told 
you"  (John  xiv.  2).  The  latter  words  of  this 
sentence  seem  to  imply  that  Jesus  took  it  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  a  Self's  condition  in 
After-Life  could  not  be  defined  by  the  popu- 
lar conception  of  either  highest  Heaven,  or 
lowest  Hell.  **Many  tarrying-places,"  He 
said.  And  yet,  a  great  deal  of  what  has  been 
called  "Gospel"  teaching  has  affixed  but  two 
conditions  for  any  soul  after  dying — Heaven, 
or  Hell.  But  why  these  ^'many  tarrying- 
places"?  Oh!  surely,  surely,  in  spite  of  all 
the  dogmatisms  of  some  teachers  of  Eeligion, 
which  may  have  been  propounded  to  the  con- 
trary, the  Christ  of  the  Eternal  All-Father 
was  not  misleading  us.   He  meant  what  He 

164 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

said.  In  the  Other-Life,  there  are  ''many  tar- 
rying-places. "  Each  one  of  us,  as  did  Judas, 
will  go  to  his  own  place.  Each  one  of  us  will 
remain  in  our  particular  ''tarrying-place" 
just  as  long  as  we  are  mentally  and  spirit- 
ually unfitted  for  a  higher  sphere ;  and  over 
the  portal  of  every  one  of  those  *'many  tar- 
rying-places,"  the  repentant,  aspiring  soul 
may  read  the  word  "Excelsior";  that  God  is 
Love,  and  His  Purpose  is  Love ;  that — as  the 
Lenten  Collect  in  the  Prayer-Book  says — 
"He  hates  nothing  that  He  has  made";  and 
that  one  day  He  will  "be  all  things  in  all  be- 
ings"(<ri  icdvTa  h  icaaiv.l  Cor.  xv.  28). 

Brand  upon  your  mind  but  this  one  utter- 
ance of  Jesus,  and  it  will  cast  upon  your 
thought  of  the  Other  World,  a  light,  a  magni- 
ficent radiance  of  Hope,  unperceived  and  un- 
dreamed of  in  the  Religious  philosophy  of 
many. 


165 


LIGHT  THROUGH  THE  CLOUD. 

The  task  I  have  set  myself  in  this  little 
work  is  all  but  finished.  After  many  years 
of  thought  and  study  of  the  Gospel  records, 
the  Light  through  the  cloud  seems  to  me  to 
gleam  very  very  brightly.  I  have  sought  to 
track  the  rays  of  that  Light  upward  to  their 
Source.  They  focus  themselves  in  the  great 
** Light  of  the  world, '*  "our  Saviour  Christ 
Jesus,  Who  abolished  death,  and  brought  life 
and  incorruption  to  light  through  the  Gos- 
pel" (2  Tim.  i.  10).  It  is  as  we  see  Him,  the 
true  Son  of  mankind,  in  the  wonder  and  mys- 
tery of  Easter  life  and  manifestation,  that 
we  can  be  assured  that  these  words  of  the 
Apostle  are  true.  Jesus  has  taught  and  dem- 
onstrated that  there  is  no  death  and  corrup- 
tion for  the  Self ;  and  it  is  this  glorious  truth 
which  alone  can  illumine  the  most  sombre  of 
all  human  experiences.  The  cloud,  gloomy 
and  darkling,  is  overshadowing  the  mind  of 
millions  at  this  time.  It  will  overshadow  the 
mind  of  all  at  some  time  or  another.   With 

166 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

no  light  through  that  cloud — what?  To  die, 
and  for  those  we  love  to  die;  and  for  there 
to  be  no  vision  of  an  unimpaired,  progressing 
Self,  whom  death  has  not  cast  outside  the 
area  of  Divine  Love,  or  put  beyond  the  sav- 
ing reach  of  Jesus !  How  awful !  No  wonder 
that  men  spiritually  shiver  as  the  shadow  of 
the  cloud  falls  upon  them!  To  die,  and  for 
those  we  love  to  die ;  and  to  be  able  to  hold 
no  better  belief  of  a  future  for  us  and  them, 
than  that  of  a  Heaven  for  the  few,  and  an 
"everlasting  perishing"  for  the  many!  And 
yet  that  has  been  taught  in  the  past,  in  the 
name  of  ''Gospel."  Is  there  any  cause  for 
surprise  that  so  many,  as  they  have  passed 
under  the  cloud,  have  failed  to  find  solace  in 
the  Christian  Religion  as  it  has  been  imper- 
fectly taught  by  some?  Oh!  dying  ones  and 
mourning  ones,  it  is  for  you  especially  I  have 
humbly  written  the  foregoing.  I  have  tried 
to  tell  you  how  the  Light  through  the  Cloud 
presents  itself  to  me.  If  you  can  believe  that 
"life  and  incorruption"  really  have  been 
brought  to  light  and  have  been  demonstrated 
by  the  incarnate  Son  of  God,  "Who  lived  and 
died  and  w^ent  through  after-death  experi- 
ences, as  we  all  must  do,  it  may  be  that  the 
Gospel  records  will  seem  to  you,  as  they  seem 

167 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

to  me,  to  be  invested  with  a  grander  signifi- 
cance than  has  been  supposed ;  and  the  Light 
through  the  cloud  will  gleam  more  brightly. 
Our  advancing  knowledge  of  spiritual  reali- 
ties— so  characteristic  of  this  present  age — 
will  not  be  viewed  as  being  something  to  be 
kept  apart  from  the  consideration  and  relig- 
ion of  Christian  men  and  women.  Eather, 
will  all  forthcoming  testimony  as  to  the  Self 
after  death,  its  retention  of  mental  powers 
and  qualities,  its  memory,  love,  sympathies, 
sequential  thought,  its  interest  in  those  left 
behind  for  a  while,  its  bodily,  mental  and 
spiritual  advancement  in  Life  Beyond — all 
testimony  as  to  this  will  be  to  us  a  corrobo- 
ration of  what  the  Great  Revealer  taught  to 
sorrowful  humanity  in  the  long  ago.  Yes, 
and  more.  The  World  Beyond  will  become  a 
living  reality  to  us.  By  a  clear  idea  of  our 
loved  ones  who  have  passed  thither,  and  by 
prayer  for  them,  that  World  will  seem,  not 
*'the  happy  land,  far,  far  away,"  but  close  to 
us ;  so  close,  so  real,  that  when  our  time  shall 
come  to  cross  the  Border-line  and  *'go  up 
higher,"  there  will  be  no  shivering  at  the 
thought  of  the  strange  and  unknown;  but 
rather  the  magnificent  conviction  and  expec- 
tation that  God's  power  ''will  still  lead  us 

168 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

on";  and  that  **with  the  Morn  those  angel 
faces  smile,  which  we  have  loved  long  since, 
and  lost  awhile."  Yes,  and  more.  Our  fuller 
thoughts  concerning  Life  Beyond,  will  make 
us  in  our  prayers  for  those  who  have  passed 
thence,  more  like  Jesus.  We  shall  not  limit 
those  prayers,  as  some  earnest  ones  do,  to 
"the  faithful  departed."  In  that  Other 
World  of  living  Selves,  there  are  many  who 
need  our  prayers  far  more  than  those  ''faith- 
ful" ones  do.  There  are  the  sinful,  the  weak, 
the  undeveloped  ones  there.  The  thought  of 
a  loving  Jesus,  Who  after  death,  was  with 
the  thief  and  once  disobedient  ones,  in  order 
to  bless  and  uplift  them  in  spirit-life,  will 
give  us  a  conviction,  which  no  theology  can 
ever  shake,  viz.,  that  Christ-attuned  thoughts, 
impulses  and  prayers  sent  forth  from  our 
spirit  are,  in  regard  to  those  Beyond  the 
Veil,  as  they  are  here,  contributory  means  to 
the  blessing,  uplifting  and  saving  of  souls. 

And,  surely,  such  thoughts  of  the  After- 
Life  will  draw  us  in  profounder  love  and 
deeper  gratitude  to  the  still  living,  exalted 
and  unchanging  Saviour.  "I  am  the  Light 
of  the  world,"  He  once  said  to  earth's  over- 
shadowed ones.  "Yes,  Lord  Jesus,  Thou  art 
the  Light  of  hoth  Worlds ;  for  to  us  sorrow- 
169 


OUR  SELF  AFTER  DEATH 

ful  ones  here  Thou  hast  shown  that  Death  is 
but  the  gateway  to  more  abundant  life;  and 
in  that  Other  World,  Thou  art  the  mighty- 
uplifting  and  saving  Force,  whereby,  in  the 
working  out  of  the  great  "Purpose  of  the 
Ages,''  we  sons  and  daughters  of  Time  can 
rise  into  likeness  to  Thee  and  union  with 
God.  Master,  in  the  place  where  Thy  Name 
is  honoured,  and  at  Thy  Holy  Table  where 
Thine  undying  Love  is  commemorated,  we 
will  bow  ourselves  before  Thee,  and,  al- 
though there  be  tears  in  our  eyes  and  sorrow 
in  our  heart,  we  will  bless  and  thank  Thee 
for  Thy  shining  through  the  Cloud." 

THE  END. 


170 


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